Steal the Sky
by Sunbird Riding Shotgun
Summary: After Nathan Ford is hired to act as the handler for three Alliance Opperatives on an off the books job nothing in his verse will ever be the same.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **Originally written for the Complete au Bigbang challenge on LJ but that kind of went sideways. Still the fic got written so please enjoy.  
Praise goes out to Deanangst and LMX3point3 for their efforts as betas

* * *

**Steal the Sky**

* * *

_The Roadhouse Bar  
Omaha's fourth moon_

**Nathan Ford: Former Investigator for the IYS branch of Blue Sun**

"So we're in agreement?" Nate asked, signaling the bar tender for another shot. God, he hoped they were in agreement. If this fell through, the others might be dead by the time he found another half-decent mechanic.

These foster sons of an old Browncoat had been luck of a kind Nate hadn't seen in far too long.

The… mark? Client? Potential handler...? nodded, downing his own shot. "You got a deal, Ford. The boys'll be on your ship at sun-up. I'll contact ya soon as I hear somethin'." He wheeled himself back from the bar and Nate knew better than to mention that electronic wheelchairs had been invented quite a while ago. Even if one wouldn't have stood out in a backwards place like this it just wasn't Singer's style. "Now if there's nothing else I've got a pair of idjits I need to make sure are getting ready to ship out."

From the time Nate had spent with the boys… well that sounded about right.

The other man didn't give him a chance to respond before wheeling himself back out into the dusty streets.

Typical.

With a sigh, Nate paid and left the bar, raising a hand to the com unit in his ear. "Hardison?"

"_Yeah boss?"_

"We have a pilot and a mechanic. They'll be on board by morning. Things ready on your end?"

"_All's shiny Captain. Only thing left to keep her grounded is she's a little empty."_

Nate could hear the excitement in his voice, all but asking the question he'd been holding onto for months. "All right." He said with a nod, not that Hardison could see it but it was more for himself than anything. "Call them."

**Hearts are worn in these dark ages  
You're not alone in this story's pages  
Night has fallen amongst the living and the dying  
And you try to hold it in  
You try to hold it in**

"_Some Bar"  
Osiris_

**Nathan Ford: Unemployed Drunk**

Later Nate would remember when the 'verse changed with a sense of irony.

It wasn't in a burst of light or flash of inspiration or at the hands of some beautiful woman.

It was when some random man he wouldn't care until later was called Victor Dubenich walked up to him in a bar on Osiris and told him that he knew who Nate was.

Or maybe it was after he threatened to punch the guy in the neck nine or ten times.

He was there to lose himself in drink. To forget about Blue Sun, like you even could in this verse, and the death of his son. He wasn't there to have some fat little man tell him what a tragedy it was that they had let his son die.

Then Dubenich had offered him a job and really, that was when the verse began to change, even if it would be awhile before he understood.

"Somebody stole my designs."

Nate raised his eyes from his now empty glass, sparing Dubenich just one 'oh really' look before motioning to the bartender. "Oh, I see, and you want me to find them."

"No," Dubenich said, not giving up. "I know where they are. I want you to steal them back."

That was interesting.

"If you know where they are, stealing them seems like a stupid risk. You're the head of a major branch of Blue Sun," Another reason for Nate to steer clear. "You could make a claim through internal channels."

"I have a board meeting at the end of this month. I've already spent five years, a hundred million credits. I go to that meeting with nothing to show for it, I am dead." He reached for the files he'd brought with him. "I mean, look at the people I've already hired."

Nate looked into the top file, surprised as he checked the other two, confirming it. "These are agents from the Department of Internal Defense." He glanced up at Dubenich, not needing to say that to be able to get three D.I.D. agents on such short notice… Didn't normally happen.

"Someone in the department owes me a favor. A big favor." Dubenich tapped the files nervously. "Do you recognize any of their names?"

Nate looked more closely at the files. Eliot Spencer he'd worked in parallel with on a couple of occasions, probably the most competent specialist he'd ever met and definitely the most dangerous. Alec Hardison had just started making his mark when Nate was on his way out but he'd heard enough to know the guy was good. "IYS has had dealings with them at some point or another." Even if their names and information never got officially logged other than as anonymous agents. He opened the last file. "Parker. You have Parker."

"Is there someone better?"

Nate shook his head. There really wasn't. Not anywhere in the verse he'd seen. "No. But Parker is insane."

"Which is why I need you."

"No." Nate put the files back on the table. "I'm not a thief."

"Thieves I got." Dubenich said, tapping the files. Almost no-one knew the specifics about agents, or even that they existed at all, but those who were in the know understood they had mostly been thieves and criminals until they were caught by the alliance and rehabilitated enough to do work for the greater good. It was half the reason that no agent did work without a handler to keep an eye on them and keep them in control should they go off script. "This is under the table, I don't have access to a handler. I need an honest man who knows agents to watch them."

"This isn't going to work. These agents, they all have the same rep. They run jobs alone, no exceptions, and they each need a handler just to keep them on script. There's no way they're going to do this job."

"No, no, they will. For three hundred thousand credits each they will. And for you, for running it, it's double that. And that's completely off the books. Look at me, I'm desperate here."

Nate just sighed.

"And there is a bonus," Dubenich added. Nate looked up. "Peirson insured this technology with the IYS branch, it's a five hundred million credit intellectual rights policy. Just how badly do you want to screw over the company that let your son die."

**oOo**

In retrospect his world probably hadn't changed until he found himself in a hotel suite on Osiris watching as the three agents entered the room for the planning portion of their little heist.

Eliot Spencer arrived first looking almost exactly like Nate remembered. His hair was longer than the short cut most male agents he'd seen sported, but he knew from Spencer's file that the hitter could and did go undercover when the need called for it which mostly explained the break from normal standards.

Next came Alec Hardison with a bag slung over his shoulders, the tech equipment that came with the ex-hacker. He looked younger than Nate would have thought. Probably only in his early twenties. Mentally Nate counted back. Hardison had just begun working as an agent three years ago. Supposedly they didn't send out agents with less than five years of rehabilitation after their criminal lives came to an end and the agency only took in criminals that had made a big enough name for themselves to be worth the effort.

No matter which way Nate looked at it, Hardison had to have started his criminal history before he was ten for the numbers to even begin to add up. Interesting.

Maybe the rules were different with younger criminals.

Parker arrived last though, Nate noted, he never actually saw how she came in. One moment Spencer and Hardison were standing off to the side not talking to each other, Nate had looked down to his computer and the next time he looked up Parker was with them.

He watched subtly as the three looked between each other, curious as they introduced themselves.

"Eliot Spencer, Classification Delta, Low Tech Offense with medical and covert specifications." Spencer said. "You can call me Eliot."

There was a strange pause before Parker continued. "Parker." Another strange pause and both Eliot and Hardison changed the way they were looking at her, like that name alone told them something.

Then again *he* knew Parker was insane without all the details a fellow agent might be aware of.

"Classification Delta, All-Tech Infiltration with explosive specification," she continued in the uncomfortable silence.

Alec Hardison picked up the last, looking down and away from the other two, almost seeming embarrassed about something. "Alec Hardison. Classification Beta. High tech offense." A slightly awkward pause. "…Call me Hardison."

They all went quiet and Nate turned his attention back to the information on the screen he'd soon be showing them, quietly intrigued.

He'd never seen Agents interact with one another before. He'd been vaguely aware from a couple conversations with various people that there was a rather strict hierarchy within the agency but he had a feeling he'd just seen proof of that hierarchy between agents firsthand.

A moment later Eliot led the other three forward, probably to ask him if they were going to do this or sit around all night.

What he didn't expect was for Eliot to keep his eyes down and to the side, almost submissively as much as the word felt wrong in his mind, cocking his head to one side and pushing the hair away from his neck.

"…Eliot?" Nate asked, confusion in his voice.

"You're acting as our handler. Dubenich gave you an Olympiad Transmitter right?" Eliot stated, a note of frustration on his voice. When Nate didn't seem to understand he dropped his hand and looked up.

Looking back, the moment his verse started to change was probably when Eliot met his eyes and calmly said. "We were only given enough leash to get here to you. The transmitter Dubenich gave you will key into our devices, allowing you to give us the range we need to do our jobs and keep tabs on us."

Slowly Nate nodded, turning back to his bag to pull out the device he'd been given when he'd agreed to take the job. It was cylindrical, a little more than four inches long and fitting comfortably in his hand with several small buttons on the top, a large orange one and what looked like a switch on the side, with a panel on the bottom.

"Press the red button on the top, then the first blue one." Hardison stated, coming forward to stand next to Eliot where he could see and give instructions better, even as Eliot pulled his hair out of the way again. Nate did so, surprised and getting a bad feeling as the panel on the bottom opened and two small steel points emerged. "Then hold it to his neck and press the red button again."

That caused him to pause a moment longer. He'd figured the D.I.D. had some way of keeping tabs on their agents, but this was giving him a very bad feeling.

Part of him was how much this was reminding him of a method used on some of the borderworlds for tracking cattle.

The other part was wondering if they were lying and he was being told how to switch off whatever tracking devices they might have.

But none of the three were acting like this was anything unusual and Parker was too crazy to lie this well.

He shook it off, those thoughts passing in only a heartbeat and really these were just ex-cons. He'd spent years chasing criminals like them. The D.I.D. probably needed all the resources they could to keep them doing honest work.

Without further hesitation he touched the spikes to Eliot's neck and pressed the button, following Hardison's instructions to key the transmitter to Parker's using the second blue button.

Later he would understand the forced blank look on Hardison's face when Nate keyed into his receiver.

"Anything else I need to know?" Nate asked, glancing between Hardison and Eliot. He was guessing Eliot was the highest ranking of the three of them, but Hardison was the one who knew the tech best.

"I'll show you how to set our ranges after the briefing," Hardison said before suddenly backtracking. "Unless you want to know now. That's cool too." His eyes flicking to the device in Nate's hand.

"No. After the briefing is fine," Nate said, before glancing between the three of them. "Speaking of which, let's get on with the job."

They all nodded and shuffled about, finding places to sit or stand while he outlined the break-in.

He still couldn't quite shake the feeling he was missing something.

**oOo**

The job had been running smoothly, almost too smoothly all things considered. Nate was familiar with the reps of agents in general and these agents in particular. In how many cases had he come to the end of his investigation, located his target, worked his way into position and called in an agent?

They always came, a person dressed in black wearing gloves, a name you couldn't find anywhere in any file even with his clearance level, and a handler dressed in a suit with eyes always on their charge and a quick sharp word at the ready to keep their rehabilitated partner on the straight and narrow.

Sure, something about it bothered him, especially the way younger agents would flinch and older agents wouldn't, but he'd never second guessed the results.

But really, for all their rep for being trouble of the highest degree, these agents seemed focused on the task at hand, needing him only to set the plan and give them a nudge in the right direction.

He listened over the com as they bantered and chatted with one another, swapping insults and shorthanded war stories that made use of strange jargon and slang and what Nate thought might be Greek or Latin but didn't understand enough of to really follow the train of conversation.

He stayed tuned anyway, curiosity mixing with an instinct to collect information on people of interest.

"_Here, latest from Hephaestus_," Hardison said over their coms_. "Added a couple modifications of my own, just been waiting for a test run."_ A few seconds later he heard the sound of Eliot switching out for what Nate assumed was the new com. being handed over to him. _"Won't get cut off by a jammer and it runs on a shadow frequency. Impossible for someone to stumble on and even harder to track. You could hold a scanner right next to it and not see a blip."_

"_You're not as useless as you look,"_ Eliot muttered.

"_Dude, I don't even know why they have the LTO class anymore. Aint anyone at Olympus heard of guns?"_

Olympus, the home of the mythological Greek gods on Earth that Was. Add to that a mention of Hephaestus, the god of the forge, and agents that spoke Greek like Chinese and things were getting interesting.

But the job was still going and from the sound of it, the team was ready.

He gave the count, noting there was at least a little sign of the reason for handlers as Parker jumped early and the other two seemed about ready to fly off-script, like kids noticing a peer getting away with breaking the rules.

At least they were mostly following script.

Once they were inside the building he went from watching them through his scope to following the movements of their transmitters through the projection of the building's blueprints, watching and listening as they made their way through the building.

All in all, things were going smoothly.

Even guards doing a walkthrough an hour early upset the agents more than him. He could see the pieces moving in his head and called the play, listening to Hardison mumble, annoyed as Eliot cleared the zone and Parker attempting to… he wasn't exactly sure what the intention behind her question of _"Do you think they'll shoot you or try to arrest you first?" _was.

"_Not gonna happen,"_ Hardison snapped back before adding in a quieter mumble, more to himself. _"No one ever catches a Hardison… Almost got caught on New Iceland but… forget it."_

Nate refused to acknowledge the possibility that the squeal of excitement he heard from Parker was because she'd heard the sound of pressurized stun guns charging and more traditional weapons being readied.

There was a moment of silence followed by the sounds of a fight and last but not least a clip being discharged from a weapon and hitting the floor.

He could almost see Eliot's smirk as he remarked. "_That's what LTOs are for."_

For almost three minutes, the job was running smoothly again as Hardison got into the server room and downloaded the data required and then, just as he was ready to get them out and put this job behind him, Parker's voice broke back over the coms.

"_They've reset the alarms on all the floors above us," _Parker stated, her voice sounding more frustrated then panicked. _"We can't go up."_

Nate turned, looking at the 3D projection of the building's schematics, the small blinking dots of the three agent's locations, and the swiftly changing puzzle.

"_Alright, we have to go down. Hit the front fast and hard. Get out before they know we're there, trust the cleaners to get rid of any leftover evidence," _Eliot said.

"_Hit the front?" _Hardison's voice sounded almost indignant. "_What part of high-tech don't you understand? I don't fight. If you get me to a security station, I might be able to hack it."_

"_Oh, and accidentally set off the alarm so we all get caught?" _Parker snapped_. "I'm not going down. I have an exit."_

"_And I have a plan," _Nate cut in_. "Now I know you three don't play well with others but I need you to hold it together for just ten more minutes." _He turned, already starting to shut it down._ "We're going with the burn scam."_

There was a single, weighted, pause before Eliot's voice sounded the affirmative over the coms.

He finished breaking down his station, listening over the coms as the three agents moved through the burn scam, listening as Eliot asked quietly if both Parker and Hardison knew the play.

Hadn't they been criminals before? Then again he supposed a Hacker and a Thief might not have cause to know all the scams.

"_Alright. Time for plan B," _Hardison commented with far too much enthusiasm.

Criminals.

"Technically it's plan G," Nate countered.

"Do you have like a plan M or something?"

"Hardison gets arrested again in plan M."

"_Wait you've actually been arrested?" _Parker asked, sounding confused, though she didn't seemed destined to have it explained to her since Hardison and Eliot both immediately gave her an exasperated '_PARKER' _that probably had something to do with her needing to hold still while they put on the makeup and Nate had decided to not get involved with explaining agents to agents.

Besides he'd reached the shuttle he'd be picking them up in and he needed to focus on flying the gorram thing.

Tense moments passed as he listened to the three con their way out the lobby even as he pulled up in front.

Without a backwards glance they climbed into the shuttle and he pulled away.

"Hardison," he called into the back.

"Already getting the files ready to send, just find someplace to stop for a minute so I can get a steady interplanetary connection."

Nate nodded, touching down in an empty air field and climbing out, watching the others slide out and come to stand, flanking Eliot closely even now that the job was done.

Silence lasted a few moments as Hardison typed, muttering to himself in Chinese about crappy bandwidths and Earth-That-Was age technology.

"Sent the files and a backup," he stated finally. "Job done, boss."

Nate slid the transmitter out from his pocket. "Alright, I'm extending your range and putting the transmitters in travel mode." Assuming he could remember what Hardison had shown him. "I trust you'll be able to find your way back to your headquarters on your own. The money will be in your accounts in the morning."

"Anyone else notice how hard we rocked?" Hardison asked.

"One show only, no encores, so don't get used to it," Eliot stated. "High Tech Offensive like you ain't gonna find yourself in the field much."

"I already forgot your names," Parker added.

There was another pause and then, almost as one, they turned their backs and walked their separate ways.

The job was over.

**oOo**

The job had been over.

The job was supposed to have been over.

They'd finished and gone their separate ways and that was that.

Only it wasn't, because someone screwed something up.

And he had a hangover that was not at all helped by his com device waking him this morning so Dubenich could bitch at him about the designs never getting to him.

And then, oh then, he had to get up and go fix this mess.

No it was not a good morning.

He made his way through the old and semi-abandoned warehouse, hearing the argument already echoing through the warehouse, not even caring about what he was hearing.

"I sent the files. I sent a back up. I checked it the morning to make sure it went through. You musta done something. You've been a delta class what, fifteen years? You decide to take as many of us with ya as you can? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?"

"I stole 'em?" There was something strangely close to fear in Eliot's voice as it bounced around the warehouse, already there and arguing with someone. But he wasn't caring about inter agency squabbles. "L. T. O.," Eliot emphasized. "Low tech, man. I'm lucky they taught me how ta read. I don't even know how ta operate that computer of yours. You messed up. If they hurt anyone in my clan, I'm takin' it out of your ass."

What?

Nate came around the corner, not understanding what he was hearing, but understanding Hardison was about ten seconds away from getting the hand pointing a gun at Eliot's face broken.

Well until Eliot turned to look at him, hearing him arrive. "Did you do it? IYS hires us for inter-branch espionage all the time."

Nate shook his head. "You look pretty calm for someone with a gun pointed at him."

"Safety's on," Eliot answered not even taking his eyes off Nate.

"Hello. HTO, that's High Tech Offensive, not High Tech Stupid. I know how to handle a gun. Safety is off, thank you so very much," Hardison said, shifting his stance. Nate gave him slightly better odds for getting a hit in before Eliot took him down.

He neutralized the situation first, twisting the gun from Hardison's grip, turning instinctively toward the sound of another gun readying to fire as Parker made her way onto the scene.

"My father is not going to be happy," she said. "And that makes me cry for him in my special angry room."

"Parker…" he reached out, ignoring the ramblings of an agent possibly driven over the edge, easing her gun out of her hands and discharging the clip. "Alright. You all are here because the job wasn't finished and… you're going to be in trouble with the agency you work for?"

Money he'd suspected, but considering the influence thrown around to get them there an unsatisfied customer was probably a bigger issue for them than not being paid.

Eliot was the one to nod. "Me 'n' Parker are Deltas, we go back to home base with Dubenich this mad… they might decide we've outlived our usefulness. An' Hardison's barely still a Beta class. They might put us all down."

Nate felt something inside his gut twist a little. This wasn't right. They were thieves but…

"So you're here to figure out what went wrong," he said, suddenly a thought creeping in, up the back of his mind. "And I'm… In fact, the only way to get us in the same place at the same time is…"

Suddenly one of the busted up screens on a nearby wall flickered into life, Dubenich's face on the screen. "All here. Good. Good."

"Get out…" Nate muttered, taking a step back.

"Well, no chit chat then. Fine. Eliot Spencer." Dubenich's gaze looked past Nate to where he knew Eliot was standing behind him. "Marcarbe San Mallis."

The screen went black and two pairs of hands grabbed his arms, Hardison shouting as the two of them dragged him along. "He's an Ares! Run!"

Maybe the next moment, when he, Parker, and Hardison all but collided into the warehouse door, desperately trying to open it without success, when he glanced back to see Eliot's figure crouched on the floor slowly rise and stalk toward them a look of disassociation on his face but deadly intent in every step.

Yeah. That was probably the moment his verse changed.


	2. Chapter 2

_Bridge of The Good Ship Leverage  
Omaha's Fourth Moon_

**Alec Hardison: Officially Deceased **

"_Call them."_

Hardison cut the com connection and sat back with a grin. Two months of waiting.

Two long months of hard work with just him and Nate and only occasional waves from Sophie.

Two long months of being officially dead, at least as far as there were official records he'd even lived were concerned, ducking security as he set a new identity for himself and wondering all the time if his Nana would ever get over losing him.

Two long months of looking over his shoulder and constantly running news crawls for any sign of Eliot and Parker, always half afraid they wouldn't still be alive when those months were over.

Two long months in the black waiting for those two words.

Now they had a pilot and a mechanic and they'd have a companion and as soon as he called the others…

Hardison looked around the bridge one more time, his babies in standby ready for the new guy to take over. Out the window he could see the hanger bay doors open, blue sky hiding the black from sight. But it was up there, and it was waiting for him, for them, like it never had before.

Shaking himself back to reality Hardison turned his chair to the com system, turning up the scrambler program he'd created, good for exactly one untraceable call, and sent the message.

**I watch the heavens and I find a Calling  
Something I can do to change this moment  
Stay close to me while the Sky is falling  
Don't wanna be left alone  
Don't wanna be alone**

**Alec Hardison: Delta Classification Operative  
High Tech Offensive with Hacking Designation**

Hardison was not your typical High Tech Operative.

Part of it was that he was young, not five years into official deployment. Part of it was his history and the war games. Part of it was the fact he was, in fact, one of the best High Tech Classifications ever to walk the halls of Olympus.

And the rest was his personality and the fact he was months, if not weeks, away from being declared a Delta Class.

But that wasn't important.

What was important was that he was not one of the High Tech drones that Olympus managed to create, someone who spent so much time immersed in a world of ones and zeros anything outside started to lose meaning. As a child he'd seen the "ideal" for his classification, seen Alpha class HTOs who could lose themselves for days in the cyber worlds, seen them go further, become nameless operatives who lost all sense of self to the data-stream, forgetting they were even human and becoming half robot as the Hephaestus labs fitted them with life support systems to take over basic human functions they'd forgotten.

Night terrors about that possible future might wake him at night but he praises god that Nana showed it to him when he was recovering from the war games fiasco and starting to push reality and it's pain away.

He was very alive, very much human, and very much aware of the world and thin line he walked.

The job offered by Dubenich had seemed a dream. A job in the field, a chance to get off Olympus, and without his handler. A job with actual people, other agents, and named Deltas no less.

Even discovering one of them was Parker had only made the whole situation seem better. The last surviving member of the Parker Clan might be certifiably crazy but she was also a legend.

And for more reasons than just being the last, a legend of her own making. Even if most of the verse would never know she existed she had become part of the history of Project Olympiad.

He had been so sure it would be the best job he'd ever run.

He was seriously starting to rethink that.

The door in front of them wasn't opening and behind them Eliot was fighting for all their lives but they were running out of time before conditioning took complete control.

Hardison gave up on the door, grabbing for Nate's shoulder, throwing caution to the wind. Nate could shock him into next year when this was over. They had to stay alive now. "Did Dubenich tell you his safe word?" Nate looked completely confused. "Eliot was one of the kids in the Ares Project. Dubenich activated his conditioning. He's gonna kill all of us and probably himself unless someone says his safe word."

Nate shook his head, understanding and horror dawning across his face.

"Do you still have the transmitter?" Hardison asked after half a breath. It would kill Eliot but they'd still be alive and it wasn't like Eliot would survive carrying out orders anyway.

"…Left it in the shuttle."

Hardison cursed and half turned to Parker, watching Eliot slowly stalk towards them.

"Okay… we all need ta stay very still and not make any aggressive movements. He's still fighting." Hardison cautioned, putting his back to the wall. "Parker, say any safe words you know."

Nate, mercifully, seemed to know when silence was the best way to stay alive.

"Bei-Ying-Ai-Gato" Parker said her voice flat but even. No effect. "Maori-Ane-chan-Tottoro"

Ten feet away from them Eliot paused for half a heart beat before continuing.

"Cola-Seirra-walid" Hardison tried, wracking his brain for any safe-word phrases he'd even been told. The random, nonsense phrases from old Earth-that-Was Languages were the same within a group when conditioning was given. The problem was figuring out which group Eliot had been in.

Well that and hoping they knew his group's safe word.

Eliot was moving toward him, blank face faltering, a wicked looking grin twisting Eliot's lips and letting him know that the conditioning had taken full control.

He was about to die.

Hardison closed his eyes and called out one last safe word. "Somno-lumpin-alegro."

Silence. Silence. The sound of a body hitting the floor and then more silence.

Hardison opened his eyes, looked down at the unconscious heap of LTO operative at his feet and considered the virtues of cyberspace.

Parker was the first to actually recover, moving to crouch beside Eliot and roll him onto his back. "He's out." Before he could caution her to _not touch _the LTOthat had almost killed them she pulled up one of Eliot's eyelids.

He didn't so much as twitch. Seemed as much as he fought the kill conditioning he fully surrendered to the safe words.

It actually made a little sense. After all, it was the kids from Ares project themselves who had told the clans their safewords.

"Does someone want to explain what just happened?" Nate asked in a tone of voice that caused Hardison to flinch, hand instinctively halfway reaching for the side of his neck before he remembered Nate didn't have the transmitter.

"Dubenich tried to kill us." Parker said, standing.

"I got that much, what I don't get is the how. Behavioral conditioning is a myth, a conspiracy theory… even if it was possible it would have to be implanted when he was still a kid." Nate said, a look on his face like he was already considering alternative theories even as a thought was processing and Hardison realized…

Parker started laughing.

"Oh! I totally get it now. You don't know." She was laughing harder, hugging her ribs like she was laughing so hard her sides hurt. "That's why you thought Hardison had been arrested before. I thought you were just crazy."

There was a moment as the words registered and then both he and, from the looks of it Nate, decided this was not the time or place to ponder Parker thinking someone was insane.

Nate turned to look at Hardison, a look on his face like someone who was just starting to realize the picture on the puzzle they were putting together wasn't at all what they thought. "Agents are rehabilitated criminals." He stated, though there was just a hint of a question in it.

Hardison shook his head. He was about to break one of the biggest rules but he'd come inches from being killed and Dubenich was probably telling their Fathers and Keepers a long lie that might get their families hurt and there was a good chance he, Parker, and Eliot would be dead in days.

There was nothing left for him to lose and he was so fucking tired of this lie.

"Agents aren't rehabilitated criminals Nate." He said, allowing his usual geek hacker persona to drop for the moment, the being shaped by a life on Olympus showing through. "The alliance takes gifted children from their families at age five and has them raised by Project Olympiad. Agents are the lucky ones who survived long enough to be deployed."

"What?" Nate asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

"And if we don't figure out how to get in touch with our handlers before Dubenich tells them we went AWL we're gonna end up dead and our clans'll pay for it to." He didn't spare another second for Nate Ford, bending down to try to pull Eliot's limp form up, Parker taking the other side.

"I can steal us a ship." Parker offered, like him tuning out Nate and focusing on the problem at hand, a hint of panic in her eyes. "You can fly anything right? We'll be home in no time."

"…steal a… Parker! We're talking about flying straight through the heart of alliance controlled airspace. We'd get caught before the day was up. Now listen. I can hack a ship's manifest." He said to the thief. "Give me five minutes and we'll have tickets back to the Quadron, we can contact Olympus from there."

"And what if their using the new Rolling Code Crystal key thingy that got that HTO class caught last month? We're better off…"

Parker cut herself off when the whine of sirens could be heard through the air.

Parker's grip on Eliot loosened slightly, like she was considering dropping him to make a faster break for it. Hardison didn't blame her really. Eliot was a fellow Olympiad, and they'd all had the same things drilled into their brains since childhood, you don't leave a fellow agent behind and you never blow their cover.

But Eliot wasn't a member of either of their clans, and the only thing them getting caught because of his dead weight would do was see that all of them and their clans were punished.

Suddenly Nate was next to Parker, taking Eliot's weight from her. "Parker, go out that window get the transmitter from my shuttle and find us a new ride. Hardison, find us a door. We're getting out of here together."

A breath, a moment, passed as Nate met first Parker's and then his own eyes.

Then Parker was gone and Nate was supporting all of Eliot's weight, leaving Hardison free to pull out his datapad. Seconds later he slid his arm back around Eliot, guiding the three of them toward a small side door he'd opened.

Sirens were loud all around them when they burst through the door, a small shuttle sweeping in just feet in front of them. Hardison opened the door and tumbled in, pulling Eliot with him as best he could, Nate shoving.

Heartbeats later the door closed and they were sent sprawling as Parker took off, escaping back toward a busier section of the city.

**oOo**

Well, this was a comfortable moment.

They were in the cramped shuttle Parker had stolen, parked in an out of the way area, sitting next to where they'd handcuffed Eliot's still form to a steel railing inside the passenger area , and Nate was looking at him expectantly.

Parker, apparently, wasn't feeling like doing explanations even if she was a classification Delta and breaking rules was more her job than his.

Another sigh and he stood, walking to the center of the shuttle and looking up through the round skylight on the ceiling to the blue sky above them and the black that it hid.

Nate wanted an explanation and he still had the transmitter (though Hardison was noting the fact that it was only now that it occurred to Hardison Parker could have easily kept the blasted thing was probably a sign that, delta class or not, they'd still internalized the teaching somewhat.).

Hardison had thought Nate had known, had thought all the investigators and officers agents were sent to work with knew at least some of what was going on. Of course it made sense now that they didn't, it was the whole reason for handlers. Someone to keep the agents in line.

Someone who knew what they were, and how to keep them in line.

Nate was still waiting for an explanation and Hardison sighed, closing his eyes, repeating the history he'd learned himself over the years.

"Every government since Earth That Was has tried to develop supersoldiers. It never seemed to work. The training, the isolation, the life itself… psychosis and termination were almost always the result. Then, 'bout a hundred years ago, someone got a bright idea. The subjects that formed a bond with someone, even if it was just all in their heads, seemed to do better, hold on longer. Some even ended up successes. They tried a few different methods, don't know the details, but in the end they started Project Olympiad."

"They took groups of nine kids, age five and six, and put them into a unit called a clan, led by a man they called father. From that moment they were taught that Clan, Father, and Alliance were all that mattered, that their Father gave them guidance, and that their Clan was their family who would protect them and help them survive, and The Alliance provided for their clan and their father and in a way was treated like almost their mother. The kids were given intense training, those who couldn't keep up were taken from the clan and killed. Eventually they reached 18 and graduated.

"Some of the kids accepted the teachings, accepted they were soldiers who fought for the glory and honor of the mother that nurtured them and for the approval of their father. They'd eventually be referred to as Alpha classifications. Others rejected the teachings and fought the control of their fathers and the project. Most were put down but often these were the most skilled of the students and the Delta classification was formed out of those who were being allowed to live, but only as long as they were useful. The Beta classification was eventually created for those who hadn't made it clear which direction they'd go yet."

"In the end the project proved a success. Out of the original forty five students there were thirty to survive to graduation, seventeen became alpha classes and nine were deployable classification deltas. Considering prior statistics said that having one truly viable operative out of fifty students was the best they could hope for… The project was quadrupled in size and given a remote moon in the Hecate system as home base. Eighty years later there are twenty nine clans, ages range from five to sixty seven, we have hierarchies, histories, specialized training for different classes. At any given point there are between fifteen and forty of our operatives operating on missions throughout alliance territory and in times of war it's all hands on deck."

Parker cocked her head to one side, watching him, that look on her face he didn't quite have a name for yet. "You're from the Hardison family." She said like she was only now understanding. "The Hardison Family was one of the original five clans." She explained to Nate, not taking her eyes off him.

Hardison forced his eyes away from Parker, trying to focus on the explanation. He was moving on from history to the present, from something he could consider just another story to their lives. He'd never had a cause to explain the way they lived to anyone before.

It was just life.

"So your last names are the names of your clans." Nate stated before turning his eyes to Parker, silently asking why she only had one name.

Hardison opened his mouth to warn him away from what was probably a sensitive subject but it was too late. Parker had stood and gone into the cockpit of the shuttle, her face suddenly carefully blank.

Nate turned back to look at him and Hardison let out a breath, looking to where Parker had disappeared. "Don't ask man." Hardison said simply. He knew the story. Hell, everyone knew the story. It was told to everyone, in every clan, as a forewarning like the grimmer fairytales of Earth That Was come to life. The fear of it was very real, and with the way things were now still very close.

Nate looked like he still wanted to ask.

"Look, every Delta class has a story, and not one of them likes talking about it. We're not going to show you all our childhood traumas just because you accidentally turned over the rock the alliance was hiding us all under."

It was more confrontational than Hardison had meant, then was probably wise all things considered. Nate had the transmitter still, even if he seemed to not know how to use it.

But a little bit of understanding seemed to be crossing Nate's face, he seemed willing to let it go (for now, his mind told him, this was Nathan Ford. He didn't just let things go).

"She's a legend in Olympus you know." He stated after a long moment, still trying to shake off the feeling. "The best thief ever walked the halls, trained as Archie Leech's legacy. She's about as crazy as they let live but I don't think anyone's ever considered putting her down. I…" He stopped himself from rambling further, realizing only belatedly what that last sentence might have sounded like to someone outside the bubble he normally lived in.

Silence, the awkward kind again.

Eliot shifted a little, the handcuffs clanking against the pole.

"What about him?" Nate asked, gesturing toward Eliot. "You said he was a member of the Ares project. I take it that has something to do with the conditioning?"

Hardison looked toward Eliot, his mind turning, files opening and displaying other memories, other information, more things he knew but kept his mind too neat to think about.

"Ares project was an experiment run on selected kids in Olympus thirty years ago. Behavioral conditioning, neural linguistic programming at unprecedented levels, a bit of genetic modification. Trying to make the perfect warrior. Every one of the subjects went insane." He blinked, mentally starting to recite the names of the planets and their distance from the sun, trying to block out his memories of the data files he'd hacked into years ago to satisfy his curiosity, pushing down the memories of what he wasn't saying. "But that was the point. They broke 'em down so they could rebuilt them the way they wanted and returned them to their families. Some killed themselves, some became classification Alphas, and some started to fight the conditioning and recover themselves." He let himself see Eliot. "The project ended nearly thirty years ago. I had heard they were all dead.."

"Nearly." The word, more gravely croak than actual speech, escaped Eliot as he shifted again. "Nearly all dead. Just me an' a couple others still kickin'."

"So you're not going to try to kill us anymore?" Parker asked, suddenly right there, and god that girl needed a collar with a bell on it or something.

"Not until you do something worth it at least." He grumbled. Slowly, carefully, with a disturbing amount of ease and casualness for a guy handcuffed to a steel railing, Eliot sat up, leaning a little against the side of the ship but otherwise looking for all the world like he'd just woken from a nice nap. Well a nice nap that had managed to leave him with the urge to kill someone. The more awake the guy got the more pissed off he looked

LTOs, they were an unsettling bunch.

"I'm gonna…" Eliot started before the anger seemed to break and fade, folded in on itself to that hot white core of rage all LTOs seemed to have, where they knew while they could physically take out all the people who heaped abuse after abuse on them they couldn't actually act on that desire.

Hardison tried not to think about the fact LTOs were more likely to kill themselves or be beaten and shocked to death by their handlers then die in actual combat. Their training was brutal, their handlers without mercy, beatings and inhumane treatment a mandate and it became even worse for Deltas. At nearly thirty-five Eliot Spencer was practically a Legend simply because he was still alive. Only seven LTOs had ever survived that long, and only two had lived to see forty.

His train of thought broke when Parker slipped forward and picked the lock on Eliot's handcuffs before returning to her previous perch as if nothing had happened, her face almost carefully blank. "I think you should help me steal a ship. Then we can all get back to the Quadrant and contact our handlers."

Hardison shook off the abrupt change of subject and shook his head, sitting back down and going back to his datapad. "No need. Give me two minutes and I can hack us all passage." He added before Parker could protest. "I'll get something low end enough they won't know or care about hackers."

"I figure we got a day, maybe two if we're lucky." Eliot added.

"You're running?" Nate asked. He'd been so quiet and it had been such that kind of day that Hardison had nearly forgotten about *that* headache. "Seems like now would be a good time to fake your own deaths."

"No." Parker said sharply, a hint of the usual fear everyone associated with going AWL in her voice. "We're going back."

"We have to." Eliot said, his tone somewhere between infinitely patient, beyond frustrated, and simple resignation. "The chips in our bodies your transmitter keys into doesn't just let whoever has our transmitter know where we are, it monitors and controls nanobots located throughout our bodies. Keying it to a transmitter recharges and reconfigures it. Go more than a month without keying into a transmitter an-"

"Boom." Parker interrupted, voice flat. "Nanobots explode. We die of a massive internal hemorrhage."

"Faking our deaths isn't an option." Hardison concluded. "Not to mention if they even thought we went AWL they'd kill someone from each of our clans." It was the way things worked.

Hardison turned his attention back to the screen, telling himself to just shut it. For all that, yeah, Nathan Ford was kind of a legend in Olympiad and was a decent guy by all accounts and Hardison was so sick of everything at Olympus he could scream but… there were other things to worry about than an ex insurance cop he'd probably never see again.

"What if there was another option?"

Silence.

Hardison looked up, looked toward the man who stood casually, walking a step away from them into the light of that skylight looking far too symbolic for a crapsack verse like this.

"I have your transmitter. I also know that we finished the job six days ahead of schedule. Dubenich won't report you're missing until the deadline he originally set. He can't. He would have no reason to expect to hear from us before then that your handlers and their superiors would believe. " He paused. "We have six days to do something about this situation. Now, if you want, you three can go running back home, try to convince someone about what happened, or… we can use what we know to take Dubenich down."

None of them said anything. None of them knew what to say.

"Listen you go back now you've got nothing. Your word against his and you all know which side they'll take. But… You are resources to the alliance, and the knowledge of your existence is a security risk. If you were to… expose him… misusing you against the alliance…"

"We'd be just following our training." Eliot said, catching on even as realization ran through Hardison's brain.

"We'd be rewarded." Hardison stated, a note of almost awe in his voice. "Anything Dubenich claimed would go into question."

"See? You'll get out of this in one piece and if it goes right?" Hardison watched Nate's eyes travel between them before settling on Eliot's. "Maybe even get a bit of payback."

A pause, a breath, a feeling like something was shifting, like the silence between firing a missile and the explosion, or that final deep breath before hitting the key to start a hack running and the moment that followed when you were waiting for some sign that it would work.

He was no typical HTO agent, this wasn't a typical job, and something told him neither of those would ever be quite true again.

"What's in it for you?" Eliot asked.

A look clouded Nate's face, something Hardison didn't understand, but something that made him think of Nana and that one…

"He used my son." A breath, an unspoken question, and then the air changed. "Let's go get Sophie."

Nate headed back for the cockpit, Parker a step behind him, and somehow Eliot's "the hells a Sophie?" Felt like the first passed firewall.


	3. Chapter 3

_The Andromeda Tower  
Olympus, sixth moon of Orion_

**Parker: Soon to be Officially Deceased **

Parker only looked at the message once before a smile crossed her face. She didn't smile for much, and most of what she did smile for involved explosions, rappelling, fire, theft, or otherwise dangerous activities.

This, conveniently, involved all of the above.

It was the work of only a few moments to take out her demolitions kit and begin placing charges around the room. It was cathartic, in a way. The charges would be going off in a few minutes, blowing up everything she hated about this place.

One on the door, just under the lock that she wasn't allowed to pick. Let them lock her inside with a huge hole in it.

One on the right interior wall that had done nothing to deaden the noise of her neighbors. It was quiet now, always quiet now, but really that was what made her hate it.

One under each of the bunks along the other wall. No one had used them in years. No one but her had been left to use them for years. It was time they were ash too.

One on the ceiling light which turned off and on at their will, not her's. She was a thief. Shadows were what she worked with. Now she'd steal some shadows for herself.

The charges placed, she grabbed her bag. She wasn't taking much, just some non-descript tools, a little cash, The Other Needle, and her stuffed bunny. Nothing that would be missed. She was stealing, but only in the technical sense. All she was taking were the few things that should have always belonged to her.

Slipping on a harness and grabbing the Needle from her stash she gave one final look around before going to the exterior wall and planting one final weaker charge on the window, ducking for cover as it blew out the glass. With a timer already running down in her head she slid the needle into her arm and depressed the plunger, barely even feeling the chemical entering her blood stream and the real countdown begin.

60 seconds for it to work.

360 for the effects of the poison to become too strong for the acute bodily control needed to administer the antidote to herself.

No time like the present then.

She hooked up the line to her harness, crawled out the little window and swan dived, the heat of the explosion hitting her back as she dropped, laughing for the first time in what felt like forever.

She didn't smile much, but she was blowing up her past and stealing her future. She could make an exception.

_**Hearts break hearts mend  
Love still hurts  
Visions clash blades crash  
Still there's talk of  
Saving souls and the cold  
Is closing in on us**_

**Parker: Classification Delta,  
All-Tech Infiltration with explosive specification**

Parker did not play well with others.

There had been a lot said about her over the years. She's (stolen copies of and) read every performance evaluation done on her since she was first taken in and she knows for a fact that her inability to connect with others has been a concern her entire life in Olympus.

She had tried (well pretended to try) when she was a kid, at least she did after she started to get over being sold to Olympus by her parents after the accident with her brother.

If she thought about it, maybe that was why she'd never really wanted to connect with her new clan.

But they'd taken care of her and taught her things and given her bunny and when she wasn't paying attention they stole something from her, stole the solitude she'd forced herself into, and maybe, just maybe, she had really wanted to try for a little while there.

The review from when she was eight still talked about her not playing well with others but made note that there seemed to be improvement.

Then her clan-brother Kelly had killed their clan's Father and her clan was stolen from her entirely.

And she never did get back the part of her they had stolen.

But she was eight years old, just months short of nine, the youngest age those in control of Olympus decreed could be executed, and so she lived. The last of the Parker clan. Nameless.

Students weren't given names of their own until they turned nine.

And now she had no clan to give her a name.

She stayed in her clan room, stealing to survive without elders to look after her, stealing to improve her skills, and stealing because those words on performance reviews; "Does not connect, is not dedicated, will only submit and obey but will not love her father", meant the few brief months she was a beta class were only a formality and she had to prove she was worth keeping alive.

Archie… Archie of the Leech clan probably saved her life. Taking her under his wing, teaching her to play along and survive under *their* rule as much as honing her natural abilities.

He was an operative, retired and now a teacher, but she would call him father in her head.

He couldn't teach her how to steal back what she'd lost, but he gave her something to replace it with.

Still, no matter what he taught her, no matter how he tried to teach her to think like she was supposed to Parker didn't play well with others.

Which, in retrospect, was probably why she had never worked with others, which was, of course, the reason why she was sort of enjoying working with Eliot and Hardison now. Working with others was a novel experience that would wear off sooner or later, but for the moment she'd enjoy it.

Though they did at least take her to some interesting places, that helped.

She'd never been to a Companion's training house before.

She followed at the back of the strange little group traipsing through the halls of some high class Companion training house on Osiris. Nate led the way, the only one who looked like he belonged here, followed closely by Eliot who sort-of looked like he could blend in as Nate's body guard. She and Hardison took up the rear.

Nate hadn't really explained the plan other than come here and get Sophie (a who, not a what, though Parker was pretty sure she had heard of ships with girl names) and Parker was trying to focus on the job and getting through this mess.

But there was a lot of expensive stuff around and her fingers were itching to steal some of it and test her fiddlies on that old looking lock and next time her handler took her out for some extra curricular theft she would have to hit a companion training house, because there were shinies everywhere here.

They turned down yet another hallway and into a big room with a long table and fancily dressed girls sitting at a meal (and was it dinner time yet?) with a middle aged woman at the head of the table talking, though she sounded like she was talking in Latin, or pig-Latin (which wasn't actually Latin spoken by pigs), or maybe whatever it was they spoke in that colony where everyone sounded like Badger.

Parker didn't really care that much, but the silver on the table was shiny and she knew, like, eight fences here on Osiris that would give her a good price on it and it might be enough to get her Handler to take her out to jump off buildings for a night.

The woman looked up and distinctly said "Nathan…" before she turned back to the other women and looked like she was excusing herself.

"A companion?" Parker heard Eliot whisper to Nate. "I say no."

Hardison seemed to share the opinion, though he wasn't voicing it. Parker knew generally speaking agents tended to view companions with a certain amount of suspicion, not sure what to make of men and women taken and trained by the alliance at an early age, like those on Olympus, but at the same time so very different.

Not to mention, Parker wasn't entirely sure what a person who Parker couldn't understand would do for them.

But then the woman had come over to them and was leading them off and Parker let herself get distracted by mentally planning how she would steal things and get out, trying to balance maximum profit with the shortest escape, until they reached a small but ornately decorated sitting room.

The woman, Sophie Parker was guessing, was talking again and Parker stared at her, trying to work out what she was actually saying. Nate seemed to have made up his mind to work with her.

"I'm a citizen now, honest." Okay, that wasn't exactly what Sophie said but it was what Parker was pretty sure she *meant* to say. It wasn't so hard to figure out. She just had to pay attention.

"I'm not." Nate responded giving a weird look.

"You're playing my side?" Sophie smiled. "I always knew you had it in you."

Nate gave a new weird look (Nate had a lot of weird looks, nearly everyone did, but this was a weird look that was different than the others she'd seen him give). After a moment he asked. "Are you in?"

Nate gave a grin that made Parker feel oddly warm in her stomach, something she didn't really know what it meant, and Sophie was responding. "I wouldn't miss this."

**oOo**

They'd left the training house and flown to some apartment complex Hardison had for them. He led them up to a flat (67 stories up, she'd need her number 3 rig to reach ground level from here. She wasn't sure where she'd left that rig in the chaos of getting nearly dead, which made her sad because she really liked that rig).

The only conversation up to that point had been Eliot trying to confirm the security of their soon to be new HQ and Hardison reassuring him it was an HTO safe house he'd been using for the mission and would have to himself for the next week.

After they walked in and saw the space, the tech, the clean lines and good conditions, the pool table that Parker knew couldn't possibly be there because Olympus put it there… Eliot muttered something about spoiled geeks.

They filtered into the apartment, Nate heading over to the wall with computer screens with that 'getting down to business' expression on his face and Parker's stomach fell.

It had been nearly eighteen hours since she'd eaten what was left of her mission rations. She normally would have stolen some more food by now but she hadn't had a chance yet. There was a refrigerator in the corner, but Nate had the 'down to business' face on and she knew from her Handlers that people with down to business faces never took kindly to being asked if they could break for dinner.

She'd just have to wait.

She sat on the couch trying to get psyched about the new job. She liked her work. She liked planning and stealing and jumping off buildings and sometimes blowing things up. It was fun. It was all she knew how to do, all she was good (the best) at, and life was easier when you enjoyed what you had to do.

But she was hungry.

Hardison sat next to her and she was almost certain it was his stomach making that rumbly sound. She'd learned how to keep that from happening from Archie (a rumbly stomach could get you caught and killed when stealth was needed).

Sophie had taken her seat next to Nate on the other couch (and somewhere in Parker's head it registered as weirdly funny how she was here on this couch with Hardison on one side and Eliot half perched on the arm rest on her other side while Nate and Sophie sat on the other couch together) but Sophie was looking at them rather than the screen.

A moment later she leaned closer to Nate, whispering something to their handler and another look Parker couldn't understand crossed his face and suddenly he wasn't in get down to business mode but a sort of stumbly awkward mode. He glanced toward Sophie and she smiled wickedly and Parker wondered why Sophie was making sex jokes to Nate (because it was the only explanation that made sense in Parker's head, even if it didn't really make sense).

Nate cleared his throat, Sophie had definitely just made a joke about sex. "You three um…" A joke about them? Wow. Sophie was into some kinky stuff. Then again she _was_ a companion.

Parker let out a little bark of laughter and there was an awkward pause when everyone looked at her like she was crazy and Eliot and Hardison didn't already know that.

Nate took another beat to shake it off. "I know…" he started. "You three have said…" Another pause before he seemed to just give up trying. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the transmitter and she felt Hardison stiffen next to her and Eliot stood up completely, suddenly tense, taking a half step forward, not quite putting himself between them and Nate but making himself the closest target. Parker forced herself to swallow the surge of fear at that thing being taken out, eyes locking onto it.

There was another beat of silence, Nate going still, surprised for some reason, before starting. "Hardison, I…"

Hardison tensed further, words spewing out of his lips, his form folding forward like he was already anticipating the shock. "I'm sorry, I'm ready to get to work, I-" He cut himself off, but not because of pain. Probably realizing he'd cut Nate off.

Parker forced her eyes to Nate's face, wanting to see his eyes on Hardison, to know if he was only going to target Hardison or if she should be bracing herself.

She didn't understand why his eyes were closed, and why his look of rage had something else and didn't seem directed at Hardison.

She didn't understand why he was squeezing the transmitter so tightly his knuckles were white and it looked like he was trying to crush it with his hand. Shocking wasn't that hard. It was just targeting and the big red button.

Nate opened his eyes and dropped the transmitter like it had burned him, the device landing on the carpet and half bouncing toward the three of them.

He took a breath, his expression changing, going blank, and Parker wondered if maybe he was having a stroke because she was pretty sure loose limbs and lack of facial expressions were caused by strokes. Or was it herpes?

Nate took another breath and he looked between them and Parker felt something in her chest shift weirdly, like it had back in the warehouse when he told them what to do and got them all out safely and didn't ask them to leave Eliot behind.

His eyes ended on Eliot and Nate spoke slowly, deliberately, each word fully formed and meaning something even if they were alien to her. "I was acting as your handler for the first job. That job is over. Now… I'm just the mastermind behind the con. You three can handle yourselves."

She didn't know what that meant.

A long moment passed before Eliot moved, slowly, like he was going into battle or something, crossing to where the transmitter sat on the floor and picking it up, straightening up and locking eyes with Nate.

The Hand- the mastermind nodded and Eliot slipped the transmitter into his jacket pocket. He turned back to her and Hardison and said. "Let's see if Geek-boy has something edible in this place."

Without another word Eliot headed toward the kitchen and Parker didn't need more than a moment to process that it was now Eliot's job to tell them when it was dinner time and he said it was dinner time so she could eat.

She vaulted over the back of the couch and headed after the LTO into the kitchen, Hardison only a step behind, complaining loudly that he had real food, thanking Eliot very much for some weird reason.

Nate and Sophie stayed on the couch.

Once Parker found a box of cereal she perched on the counter, happy that HTs were kept in the best environments of anyone at Olympus. She hadn't had cereal in forever. Now she could eat her cereal and watch Hardison try to defend his food stocks while both he and Eliot tried to scrounge up something that Eliot could eat.

"_So you're our handler now Eliot?"_ She asked in Greek. Every agent on Olympus was fluent in it by the time they were eight but few trainers even ever learned more than the basics so she doubted Sophie or Nate would just *happen* to know it. _"Can an agent be a handler? Does it mean you're not an agent anymore?"_

"_There's something wrong with you," _Eliot muttered, glaring at her over the can he'd pulled out of the shelves and was now studying. From their progress so far it looked like Eliot would just be taking dietary replacements. She made a face at the thought. She carried some herself, even agents who could eat more than the, like, nine things an LTO with Eliot's level of genetic and internal modification could digest carried them. A small bottle of them could keep you going for a month without suffering from malnourishment.

But they tasted like moldy chalk dust and did nothing to stop you from actually being hungry.

He put the can down with a little more force than was probably necessary and Hardison closed the last cabinet, muttering an apology before taking his own dinner out of the heater, leaning against the counter as Eliot started putting the food back.

They were quiet for a moment before Eliot responded to her question finally. _"I'm not your handler,"_ he said firmly. _"We don't have a handler right now."_

"_But we're not at Olympus," _Parker stated. _"And we don't have our Fathers so we need a Handler." _It was fact. They were agents. Agents had their Fathers at Olympus and Handlers when they left Olympus. Handlers and Fathers organized their housing and got them food and clothes and medical attention and Parker didn't know how to do those things.

Maybe she could? She could just steal food and she didn't need clothes, she was already wearing clothes though she'd probably want to change sometime in the next six days and she didn't know what happened to her bag and… well she was staying here but she couldn't sleep here. She couldn't sleep with other people in the room. She could sleep in the air vents if they were the right type.

It was terrifying to not have a Handler.

She smiled a little, getting an adrenalin rush from just standing still was kind of awesome. She ate another handful of cereal as celebration, mentally congratulating herself on finding the food without a handler. Never mind that she'd done it in a pinch before, when she was desperate. This was different.

"_It's just a few days,_" Hardison said.

Parker couldn't tell if he was trying to reassure himself or stating something he wasn't happy about.

Eliot put the last of the food back, got a glass of water, and downed the pills. A beat passed and she found herself just sitting there, wondering what came next, waiting for him to…

No. She didn't have a handler now. She was a freelancer.

She jumped down from the counter and went back to the couch.

And she took her cereal with her.

A half hour later Hardison had gone through most of the copies he'd made of the files they'd stolen, Nate looking weirdly at the designs. Sophie had actually spoken to Eliot, who'd actually responded and they had had a conversation that sounded like they were flirting but felt like they had guns pointed at each other and were seeing who's was bigger.

Companions made no sense but she'd never seen an LTO make so little sense. They were generally easy to understand. They hit people and growled angrily and then they died. They were straight people. Not twisty people like Companions.

She was thinking about that when Hardison let out a whooping noise and Parker turned to look only to see his fingers flying across the keyboard in his hand, images whipping across the screen. He was talking about something Parker didn't really understand involving a hidden cipher, shadow memory vaults, and something about the age of the geek-baby.

What she did understand was that suddenly the screen wasn't showing boring blueprints to a space ship but dozens of files, popping up with graphs and reports and tables.

Silence.

"We didn't steal space craft designs," Hardison muttered, clicking through the reports, speed reading them like only an HTO could. "This is from The Academy." His voice went a little quieter, "I've heard about it, it's another DID initiative, brand new, the program may end up rivaling Olympus if they ever manage to…" His voice trailed off as he clicked and brought up a picture and bio of a teenage girl with brown hair and scared eyes. "…have a success."

"Like her?" Sophie asked.

Hardison nodded, reading still. "Sorta… she's not quite deployable yet but apparently she's already been shown to several high ranking officials personally, as an example of the project's potential."

"What's left before she's ready?" Nate asked.

Hardison let out a breath but Eliot answered first, eyes scanning over the reports on the screen. "They stripped her amygdala, messed with her brain god knows how many other ways, says they're working on behavioral conditioning." His voice was more gravely than usual as he finished, "My guess is she's gone completely insane."

There was a quiet moment and Parker realized everyone wasn't sure how to respond, since Eliot knew because they'd done something like that to him and okay, kinda awkward.

"So Dubenich was hiring us to steal back space-craft plans that were actually information on a top secrete DID initiative?" Nate asked.

"I'm pretty sure he was just hiring us to steal them," Hardison answered, looking over to Nate. "I mean, I was wondering why Dubenich cared so much about space craft designs before but, now it makes total sense man."

Nate was looking at Hardison the way he normally looked at her and Parker wasn't sure she liked Hardison confusing Nate. That was her job.

Though she did kind of like not being confused when Nate was.

"Dubenich is the head of one of the research divisions at Olympus." Eliot explained. "His job at Barrington is a cover. It's how he got three agents to do a job for him without questions asked." Eliot was looking at the screen now, his eyes on the girl, his face set cold. "He probably had us steal the files to use them in his own work."

"Alright…" Nate said after half a beat, standing up and walking up to the screen. "So this guy used his connections to get us to steal information to help his own experiments on unwilling subjects. I know just the thing." He nodded, "Let's go steal a Brown coat."

He turned and left the room before Parker could figure out if the segue meant anything or if he was just cold and liked the color brown. She turned to look at Sophie, who should know this kind of thing if she was making sex jokes to him.

Her response of a shrug and commenting that he hadn't changed a bit was entirely unhelpful.

**oOo**

And that was how she found herself in the air vents in some building, listening with some surprise as Sophie lied and lied and lied and broke rules (and weren't companions supposed to be really anal about not breaking rules? Like Alpha classes only sexy) and grifted her way into the offices for a secure building.

They were just getting some preliminary information. They had to be careful. Their real target was a lot harder to get to.

So she sat in the air vent as Sophie did things companions weren't supposed to do, to get some guy out of his office (and really, how could Sophie flirt with a man while making him paranoid crazy about a subordinate who was stabbed in the neck with a pen?) and then Eliot came in and charmed the lady at the desk (and seriously, LTOs were not supposed to be able to do that) while Hardison talked and even joked with Nate (no agent was supposed to do that) and he was talking and joking right back (and no one ever did that with an agent).

And she did her thing and got what she needed and Hardison did his hacking thing and she got out and as she was crawling through the vents she realized she was playing pretty okay with them, and she wasn't supposed to do that either.

Parker just doesn't play well with others.

But none of the others were doing what they're supposed to so maybe, just this once, it's alright.


	4. Chapter 4

_Some Backwater Hellhole,  
Fourth Moon of Antigone_

**Eliot Spencer: Soon to be officially deceased,  
And possibly dead for real**

Eliot didn't get the message right away. He was running a job, fighting his way in and out of some backwater hellhole when his com unit let him know he had a message waiting.

With half a dozen guys between him and the exit, his left arm out of commission, and Ron, the guy they'd sent in with him, nowhere in sight, he had other things to worry about.

Eliot managed to clear the path to the exit as his "partner" staggered in from a side passage. He was trying to keep pressure on a wound to his shoulder, but Eliot could count nearly a dozen more. If Ron wasn't a LTO Class like him, Eliot would have never believed he was still standing.

As it was, they both knew Ron would bleed out unless he got proper medical care very soon.

Medical care that their handlers could and would normally see they got now that the mission was done.

Expect that they both also knew that they were classification Delta, sent on a suicide mission. They weren't supposed to walk out of here alive, no help would come for several hours at least.

Ron collapsed halfway across the room and Eliot went to him. They hadn't known each other before this job but they were both LTO Class Classification Deltas. They'd lived their whole lives in the same world and that was more shared understanding than they would get from just about anyone else. Ron wasn't long for this verse and Eliot would at least see to it he left it as comfortably as he could.

Ron tried to shake him off. "Outside…" He muttered, as much blood coming out as words. "Just want to see sun…"

"Alright, butcha won't make it walkin' on your own," Eliot answered, sliding his good arm around Ron's waist and helping him limp across the last fifteen feet to the door. "Just like the old sayin'." Ron smiled a little at that and closed his eyes, focusing on limping out as best he could.

It was dusk outside, the sun already almost gone by the time Eliot helped Ron to the ground.

Before night fully fell, Ron opened his eyes for one last look at the blue skies turning to black and breathed his last.

Slowly Eliot took out his com unit, wondering if he should take care of Ron's body before or after making the call, when he saw Hardison's message.

Three months since they'd split up.

Two months since Hardison faked his death and went AWOL.

Fourteen years as a classification Delta, one misstep away from death by the sword, or the gun, or the firing squad, or The Operatives.

A lifetime of fighting someone else's battles and trying hard not to end like Ron.

And another bloody day.

Somehow it all came down to a single wave and two needles full of chemicals he'd kept close at hand.

Carefully, he took them out of the carrying case with the rest of his medical supplies (enough to treat his arm, never enough to save a life). With a field medic's efficiency he prepared the first and injected himself, waiting two minutes to make sure the full effect was taken before injecting himself with the other.

With one last glance to Ron and a bitter mental congratulations to his handler for finally getting them both killed, Eliot turned around and left, slipping into the underbrush without a mark of his passing.

Through the woods were fields, across the fields was a road, down the road was a town, in that town was transportation, and transportation would, one way or another, get him to the border world where Ford and the others were waiting for him.

As of now he was officially dead. He had officially lost.

But Eliot knew that, maybe for the first time ever, he'd actually won a fight he had chosen.

_**We part the veil on our killer sun  
Stray from the straight line on this short run  
The more we take the less we become  
The fortune of one man means less for some**_

**Eliot Spencer: Delta Class,  
Low Tech Offensive with Covert and Medical specifications**

Eliot Spencer was a fighter, a survivor. At age five he'd been told he probably wouldn't live to see six and now he was closing in on thirty-five. He'd fought through the nightmare that was training and the hell that was the life of an LTO, carrying the scars of battles and beatings and somehow managing to keep his abused body functional. He'd survived the Ares Project, reclaimed his sanity, fought the conditioning, and learned to live with the modifications they made to his mind and body, holding himself together even when his changed physiology rejected yet another medication and old symptoms returned.

He was a fighter. A survivor. Maybe even his clan's protector, for as much and as little as he could protect them from anything.

He was not sure how he ended up here.

Here was Osiris, with Nathan Ford, two other agents, and a companion.

Here was without a handler, keeping an eye on Parker (because she was insane) and Hardison (because he was young), watching out for both of them because they needed watching and he was older and it was just what he'd been taught to do (not because they reminded him of Jack and Josephine or because he liked them at all).

Here was trying to predict a companion who wasn't and figure out Nate's behavior ever since the man had given them the transmitter, for the first time in their lives telling them they could be their own handlers. Somehow this man, so alike but so different from the investigator Eliot had worked with and spent two weeks inside a cell on Osiris's 9th moon with eight years ago, seemed so… he just didn't know.

Here was in a park, with Sophie, meeting with The Doctor, a man who'd spent years trying to get subjects of The Academy out, and on whom the team had found information during their last investigation.

He knew, linearly speaking, how and why he'd gotten here, but so much of it was a mystery in the philosophical sense he'd need to be a little more clear headed to consider.

(The edge of his mind was starting to get a little hazy, nothing serious, but it had him worried. It could be the first sign his body was rejecting the most recent round of medication the doctors had him on. Or just that his unstable internal chemistry had been upset by the fact he hadn't eaten more than Dietary Replacements for three days and barely slept in over a week).

He sat on the bench, pretending to read the day's newspaper while Sophie sat beside him and looked about the park like she was just enjoying the day.

Eliot saw their quarry approaching, despite not knowing what the man looked like even after contacting him for this meet. He was younger than Eliot had imagined, and looked more together than most rebels. He was going against the alliance, but was by no means a Brown-coat.

But he looked like a doctor. It was a very distinct self-assurance, and he looked like someone who had just casually slipped a tail and was keeping an eye out for another one while looking to make a meeting.

Another all too casual survey of the area and The Doctor passed them, stopping and looking to Sophie. "Anna?" He asked, surprise in his voice, using the alias they'd given him. "What a surprise, I thought you were still off world."

Sophie and The Doctor made nice, acting for all the world like two old friends meeting in the park, the code phrases they'd given each other during their initial contact slipped seamlessly into the conversation before Sophie introduced Eliot as her personal assistant and, wouldn't The Doctor (Matt, though Eliot was sure that was as real a name as Anna was) come with them to lunch?

They walked off together through the park to the area Hardison had cleared of the ever watching cameras of the alliance and put his own surveillance in to give them warning of any approach.

And suddenly all pretenses were dropped and the game changed.

Eliot took a step back, watching as the two sought information from each other, getting each other's measure and Eliot had to grudgingly admit Sophie was the best he'd seen at this.

Unfortunately while Hardison had been able to tell them in no uncertain terms that The Doctor was who they thought he was and his motivations for wanting to get the subjects out were pure and he fit in perfectly for the role they needed him for…

The Doctor was paranoid and had no hacker to check up on them.

And he was getting antsy and Sophie wasn't telling the truth about why they wanted to get the subjects out, which was okay mostly because revenge probably wouldn't impress this guy much and Eliot didn't really feel like explaining that their survival depended on it but…

"I don't know who you people are," Simon said finally. "And if you're doing this then good for you but I need to get he- them out of there and I can't do that if you get me caught."

A little stumble, just a little one, but it clicked something into place and suddenly the familiarity of The Doctors face made a little more sense.

Eliot let out a slow breath, the fuzziness at the edges of his mind getting worse, but he let it. This was important and he'd use what he could to get through to this guy.

He could feel the whirl, the pull and he bit down on the surge of nausea before the gathering tension in his mind broke and he heard a soft trill of laughter, a little girl's voice bubbling with too much intelligence, feet moving with too much grace. A ghost of a little hand slipped into his own, pulling at him to follow deeper into the memories and the stream of subconscious. A surge of knowledge, memories, disorganized and already fading before it took hold.

He pulled back and away from it, trying to suppress the way his body was shaking just a little, the feeling of falling hard and fast and hitting his own body, mind syncing back in and it was all he could do to stay on his feet as the world around him spun.

Sophie had stopped talking but the hands on his arm weren't hers. The Doctor… well it was in his name that he was a Doctor. A trauma surgeon, his mind provided now, top of his class, a prodigy. Not the only one in his family.

_Simon Tam._ His mind whispered. _River Tam is his sister._

Simon was saying something and Eliot pulled in another breath, forcing away the aftereffect. As much as Eliot might try, and despite a damn lot of practice, he couldn't completely cover the physical effects of Slipping. The medications he took helped to block and moderate his powers since the tap-dancing the Ares Project had done inside his mind had stripped most of his innate abilities to do that, but it meant accessing those powers was all the more difficult and the havoc it wrecked on his internal chemistry all the more severe.

Simon was telling him to sit down, hand reaching for a bag he wasn't carrying, and something more of Eliot's opinion of the man changed. He didn't need to slip to read that the man had become a doctor to help people rather than for the money.

Some days Eliot marveled that there were still people like that out in the verse.

"You know her," Eliot stated, meeting The Doctors eyes. "You were close before they took her." The look on The Doctor's face said enough. "And now you know they're hurting her and you just need to save her because that's your job. She's your little sister and the Alliance took her."

The Doctor opened his mouth but no sound came out.

"It's okay. I get it. I'm a big brother, an' my siblings are in danger right now too." He spoke slowly, deliberately. He didn't talk about himself. He'd never had a need to. Agents knew each other's stories or knew better than to ask. But he could recognize a brother's need to do his job, and he knew that connection would make sense to a brother like little else in the verse. "I'll be honest, we're not in this on some righteous crusade to save your sister. The alliance is threatening my family, and the families of two of the members of our team. We have a plan that will take out the main threat and get your sister out in the process. If you help us it will go a lot smoother and chances are everyone will be going home safe."

There was a moment of quiet and Eliot took the chance to take a deep breath, try to stabilize his mind, try to focus on the goal. They needed his help for this.

Simon was looking at him, watching, studying, him. "Surgery to the frontal lobe," Simon said after a moment. "Repeated," he amended. "They did a magnificent job on the scars but… I've seen enough to notice." Eliot went very still, realizing Simon was talking about him. "A long time ago. I'm guessing also temporal?"

Did this guy really expect an answer?

"You're from The Academy?" Simon asked after another moment, sounding insanely calm. Eliot shook his head.

"No," Eliot answered, took a breath, used what he could. "But somewhere a lot like it."

"We know your sister is in danger," Sophie supplied, coming forward, taking over the newly opened line. "They're trying to implant her with conditioning and alter her mental processes. We don't know how far they've gone or fully what to expect but with your help we can get her out and help you get her off world."

"And after?" Simon asked.

Eliot shook his head. "Our team has five days before the deadline, an' I mean dead. We can arrange your transportation off world, but after that you're on your own."

Slowly Simon nodded. "Tell me what you need."

"Funding," Sophie started. "Your medical skills and knowledge, and you need to be with us when we go in. I'm a registered companion who's worked this planet for three years. Our team's leader and I run too high a risk of being recognized to go in and the three other members of our team, as you've established, are currently AWOL from a rival project. Sending them in is a risky business. We can walk you in there, but we need a fresh face." She hesitated before adding. "And it'll go smoother if you walk her out."

Simon looked confused at the last bit and Eliot explained. "We believe it's likely she's suffering from at least temporary psychosis brought on by the experiments." He tried to ignore the surge of pain he felt from the other man. "She's your sister. She trusts you. You'll have the easiest time of any of us getting her out."

Simon nodded slowly.

"Come back to our base," Sophie suggested. "We'll talk about plans there."

**oOo**

The plans were made, Hardison was busy with the preparations, Simon was gone and Sophie with him, Parker was… somewhere (he was almost sure he felt her sleeping in the air vents).

He wasn't sure what to make of Nate's offer to play pool.

No, he knew what to make of it. Nate wanted to talk to him.

Eliot just wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He could say yes and then just win in a single turn. In his minds eyes he could see the angles and shots, wining in a single turn was easy. No need for talk.

But he'd always respected Nate and now that the man wasn't his handler or another faceless user, now that he was something new…

The man had given him his first taste of freedom, even if it wasn't more than a brief illusion.

He could give the man a chance to say his bit and ask his questions.

The game started slow. Eliot played carefully, letting the game drag on, not being bad but being only decent.

The first game was nearly over before Nate stopped their casual conversation with a direct question. "Were you ever hurt because of me?"

Of course. Nate always did have a guilt complex.

"Yeah," Eliot answered. "That time on Dongjing. You pissed off my handler an' he took it out on me." He took a shot, his voice as casual as if he was talking about weekend plans. "'Course, my Handler's always been a sadistic son of a bitch so ain't like it was anything new." He looked over to Nate, raising an eyebrow. "You gonna take your shot?"

Nate moved, to his credit hiding the way Eliot had disturbed him well.

"You know on Olympus we say it's the ultimate game of chance." Eliot said as Nate lined up his shot. "Pairing with a handler. They ain't all bad. You ever worked with Neal Cawfry?" Nate nodded. "His newest handler, Burke, is practically famous for how protective he can be. But most see us as tools, not people."

Nate took his shot and stepped back. "I need you to do something for me." Eliot nodded for him to continue, glad they'd gotten to the point and curious to find out what it was. "What happened yesterday, with the food and the transmitter, I need you to tell me what's going on with you three at times like that. What I shouldn't do. What I should remember to do."

Eliot could argue, point out that he wasn't their handler anymore, but it had taken all of three hours for Hardison to start looking to Nate for guidance again. Parker had made it to almost five hours and other than a trip to a grocer Eliot had mostly followed suit. They were used to having someone to look to for direction. Eliot had gone undercover, had spent periods of time working away from a handler, but even he was feeling disoriented at the prospect.

Of course by this time tomorrow the job would be over and they'd go their separate ways, so was there really a point?

"What does it matter?" Eliot asked. "After tomorrow we'll be back to Olympus and never see you again."

Nate gave that infuriating smirk of his and simply nodded for him to take his shot.

Eliot sunk another one of the balls and sighed, not wanting to think about the next day.

"You look better," he commented after a moment, watching Nate's move. "Than when we started."

Considering when they had started, Nate had smelled like booze and the haze of a not far gone hangover had felt like it was oozing around the man, this was better. He was barely drinking and he looked… more alive.

Of course the man's answer was neutral at best. "That bothers you."

Nate gave him a look and Eliot just smiled his own infuriating grin. He'd worked enough with Nate to know the man's opinion of criminals. Now they were about to commit more than a dozen very serious crimes and…

But to steal a girl. To save lives. And against a part of the Alliance that was dirty at best.

"You gonna take your shot?"

Eliot sighed and took a drink of beer. It was basic cheap stuff, ironic that the cheaper stuff tended to be the closest to what his body could process. He shook his head, voice gentling a little. "Listen, 'm sorry about your kid."

Nate leveled a look at him that plainly said he'd gotten a little too familiar. "You don't know anything about that."

Eliot met Nate's eyes, forcing away the flashback of little Jack, just eight years old and sick. A performance review failure. Eliot, just fourteen, barely human again, finding something to hold onto in working with his younger clan brother to try to get him to pass the next review. A score just a single point below passing. The way Jack sobbed when he was taken to the front of the crowd and the ringing silence after the bullet was put into his skull.

"Everyone knows," he responded to Nate, his words carrying the ghost of a second meaning as his eyes drifted over to where Hardison was working before focusing on Nate again, letting the hint of understanding fade. "A guy like you goes off the grid and we all notice, and it was a bad story too. How did they justify that?"

Nate bristled a little. "You and I are not friends Eliot," he stated, since Eliot clearly wasn't taking the warning.

Eliot brushed off the pushback. "Yeah, cause we both've got so many." The door opened and he felt as much as heard Sophie come in. "Incoming." He headed off for one of the two small back rooms that served as bedrooms. He could use a break from these people, especially if he was already feeling people again.

**oOo**

Eliot had been meditating, trying to re-center his mind, when the door to the darkened room opened and he felt Sophie walk in.

He considered ignoring her, not wanting to deal with a companion or anyone right now, but he could sense a hint of something behind her intentions. Importance, a purpose.

And he knew enough about companions to figure if she wanted to talk to him she'd get him to talk to her eventually.

He sighed and opened his eyes, rising from his seat on the floor. "What do you want?" he asked, his voice gruffer than usual when talking to women, but it had been a long day.

"You're a reader," she stated, almost casually.

Well then.

He shrugged. "Not a very good one," he answered, straight forward. Maybe once he confirmed this she'd just go away. "M' gift was never very strong. I can get little clues, hints, feelings… but nothing like in the stories you hear."

Sophie sat down on the room's lower bunk, absently smoothing the covers and dashing Eliot's hopes she was going to go away quickly. "I have a friend I met on Cairo a few years ago called Ziva David." Eliot blinked, recognizing the name. She was one of the alphas in the LTO class, pretty well known on Olympus for being all but permanently assigned to help a Naval Outpost in the New Virginia System without an official handler. "We ended up doing some work together and I found out a lot about the agents of Olympus." Sophie looked up, meeting his eyes. "I have a question, one I asked her, one that may prove important."

Companions. Always had to go for the drama. "What?"

"If you could walk away from Olympus, free, with no harm done to your clan, would you?"

_What? _

She stood slowly. "You're what? Thirty-five years old? Olympus has been your home since you were a child. You probably don't even remember what life was like before. You've always had a home, food, medical care, someone to tell you what to do and make the hard decisions for you. You hurt and kill people but you've never had the choice to do otherwise so it's never been your fault. The only people you know well are other agents, the work you do is the only work you were ever taught. Not to mention with everything they did to you you're probably reliant on them for the medication and treatment that keeps you alive and sane. On your own you might not last any longer than you will as an LTO before your body just breaks down."

Eliot bristled. "Is this your way of trying ta convince me to go back to the straight 'n' narrow? Salute the alliance, play their game and all that crap?"

Sophie shook her head, the calm but serious expression on her face unnerving. "It's a serious question. I want to know your answer. Even with all of that would you still walk away?"

"I wouldn't walk. I'd run as fast as I could." He looked up to Sophie, not sure why he was telling *her* this, but maybe he just needed to say it to someone. He'd never said it to his clan. He never could. His clan was made up of LTOs and Low Tech Reconnaissance, a class nearly as deadly LTO. Willie was the only one left alive who was older than Eliot, Amiee the only one close enough to Eliot's age for tradition to allow for anything but a strictly mentor and protector role.

After everything that happened he could barely sit in the same room as either of them, rules, knowledge, and memory of nightmares forcing a space they couldn't cross.

Sophie's eyes were still on him and he looked up at her, as defiant an expression on his face as he knew how to give. "I'm dying. Every year my body breaks down a little more and they stopped trying to fix it years ago. At this point it isn't a question of if something'll kill me before I turn forty, but what." Shock played across her face. "I'm fine with that. I've survived longer than most my class does and some days an end to the fight seems pretty nice but if it weren't…" He shook his head looking away into the shadows of the room, speaking the dream that had played through his mind since he was still a student. "If my clan wouldn't suffer for it, I tell ya I'd run and keep running and not give a damn when time ran out an' they caught up with me. I'm a dead man walking already. I'd just like to know what it's like to live free before I die for real."

He went quiet and sat back down. Some more meditation, or maybe just some quiet brooding, would help get his head together.

Sophie left without another word.

He opened his eyes after she had gone, the darkness of the room as soothing as a grave.

He was a fighter, a survivor, and he'd managed to live a long life all things considered but he was tired and running out of time.

Maybe once this job was over it was time for him to do what the agents sometimes referred to as the last act of defiance.

Maybe it was time to leave the fighting to the next generation.


	5. Chapter 5

_Base Housing for the Naval Yard  
Quantico, First moon of New Virginia  
_

**Katherine Clide: Companion, currently on sabbatical  
Alice Ying Ai: Missing, Presumed Dead  
Charlotte Prentice, 18****th**** Duchess of Hanover: Retired companion, widowed, currently traveling the 'verse  
Jennifer Yeoman: Wanted in three systems, suspected to be hiding out on Whitefall  
Elizabeth Wang: Dead and greatly missed.  
Sophie Devereaux: Grifter  
**

Soft laughter faded quickly as it had come and Sophie took a long sip of her tea, settling back into her cushioned seat and trying to not appear like she was avoiding her friend's eyes. The young woman sitting across from her, sharing the quiet of a stolen afternoon without the mess of both their lives was a dear friend… well, as dear as any could get in this verse, though how their paths had come to this point was something neither was entirely sure about.

It wasn't that David because no matter the years or changes in David's life she would always be David to Sophie for a million reasons. familiarity and their origins not the least - wasn't dear to her. It wasn't that Sophie wasn't happy to see her friend in person for the first time in nearly a year, she was. The short conversations three months ago had reminded her how much she enjoyed time spent with the other woman.

But, no matter what had happened four years ago when "David" had managed to escape her old life and just months ago when she'd finally created her own new world to live in now… David was still an (ex) agent.

David had been an agent, even a proper classification alpha, and there were still times when she acted like it. There were still times when training half beaten, half brainwashed into the woman showed through and as much as Sophie wouldn't admit it at this moment, that made her stomach clench in a way she was more than mildly uncomfortable with.

Hardison was with Nate, officially dead and as safe as you could get in this verse. But Parker and Eliot were still "alive", still trapped in that world and they were still classification deltas, still one wrong move away from a death none of them would be able to stop, even if they found out about it before it came.

"Sophie," David said, accent soft and low and gentle as it drew Sophie's attention back to her like an almost physical force. David's eyes ran analytically over Sophie, though Sophie figured it was just for show so that Sophie would know she was being studied. David hardly needed to focus to study her. After her training in Project Olympiad, David was nearly as good at reading people as an ex-companion-turned-grifter like Sophie. "You are worried. You don't need to be."

Sophie was saved from having to answer when her personal com. unit let her know she'd received a wave. She opened it and read the handful of words and let out a sigh. "Not anymore," she answered David with a smile.

She put down her com. and picked up her tea. She would cut her visit short, David had already assured her she'd take no offense if Sophie left a few days early to rendezvous with her new crew, but she would finish her tea first. She didn't know when she'd get a chance to return.

She looked back up to David who was smiling that small, soft smile Sophie had never seen on the woman's face before the last of her ties to Olympus were cut. She said nothing but the light in her eyes spoke volumes of a new life and freed mind.

This smile was for three Olympiads who would soon be walking free.

"David…" Sophie winced a little and amended herself at David's look. Even if she'd always be David to Sophie, David had only just finished telling her how she would be leaving that part of her to lie dead and buried at last. She took a new family now, and she'd take their leader's name. Though _Gibbs_ just… it would take some getting used to. "Ziva…" It felt weird to call her by her given name. "Thank your team for me. For them."

The smile turned cat-like, amusement in her eyes. "Abby and Ducky were happy to help. They ask me often if I've heard news of it happening yet." She shrugged. "Of course they also ask for the full story."

It was a roundabout way for Ziva to remind her she'd never kept her promise to tell her the whole story once everything was over.

Sophie put down her tea cup and sighed, but took the hint. If she didn't tell David now there was no telling when she'd get the chance. "It's a long story, but I've got a bit of time to share it." She looked out the window into the blue skies and smiled softly. "It started a bit more than three months ago." She shook her head. "No, it started a long time before that. It had a lot of starts but you might say it started when an investigator for the IYS branch of Blue Sun named Nathan Ford lost his nine year old son to a curable illness. No… too early. I guess it started a bit before I got involved."

Ziva watched her impassively, used to waiting for people to get to their point if her stories of her new family were at all true.

Still Sophie shook her head internally and smiled. "It started three and a half months ago, when Nathan Ford was getting drunk in a bar on Ariel and he was approached by a man named Victor Dubenich."

"What for?" Ziva asked, mostly to indicate she was listening.

"He claimed he was the head of an engineering company and a rival had stolen his designs for a new ship. He had used his connections and more than a little bribe money to get the DIDS to let three of their top level agents freelance to help him steal them back. These agents would not be working with their usual handlers, as the operation was under the table so Dubenich wanted Nathan Ford to make sure the job ran smoothly…"

She continued to spin the story, letting it unfold in her own mind once more, trying to use her words to trace back to when a chance to feed old addictions (crime and Nate) had become something that she'd left her whole world behind for and was even now preparing to fly off into the black to find.

**The world is on fire  
It's more than I can handle  
Tap into the water, try to do my share  
Try to do more, more than I am able  
Bring it to the table, bring what I'm able**

**Sophie Devereaux: Grifter**

Sophie was looking for something.

She never really knew what it was that she was looking for, but she knew she would know when she found it.

She could never remember a time when she hadn't been looking for something. She'd left home to go to a training house for companions as a girl with bright eyes and high hopes and a feeling like there was something just beyond reach and every step brought her a little closer to it. She'd dived into her studies trying to find the answer, studied under great philosophers to try to identify the question, and became a grifter for the freedom to search the verse until she found it...

Somewhere along the road the trail went cold and she got tired and distracted and caught up in the web of lies she spun and the high of the con and living life, she had let the search go.

But even if some days she shook her head at her own childish fantasies that had taken her so far from the life she'd once led, she still couldn't help but look up into the black at night and wonder if it was still out there and if maybe she would find it one day.

And she still remembered what it was like to feel the pull of that old search, of just a hint, something inside her chest telling her to turn here or get on a ship or any of the hundreds of twists in the path of her life. A feel she could talk about in esoteric terms but never fully explain.

A feeling she'd had for the first time in years when Nathan Ford walked back into her life, leading three agents, walking on her side of the line, and asking her to join him for a con.

Sophie could deny it, but she was still looking for that something, and was still letting that search take her on one more adventure.

And so she was here, following that path, sitting with Nate and the team minus Hardison who was flying their shuttle, going over the plan one last time even as cityscape gave way the badlands away from the main city on Ariel.

"…when you get there Parker and Eliot will head back, we only have clearance for you, but they'll put Hardison's spike into the system and plant the explosives on their way out. We'll be monitoring their communications and help you navigate to our pick up point." Nate finished as Simon put in his com. and nodded.

The shuttle slowed down, pulling up in front of the facility, and Sophie watched as Simon, Parker and Eliot, pristine in their alliance uniforms (though she'd seen how uncomfortable both Eliot and Parker had been when they'd first donned them, Parker actually stating she didn't think she could remember the last time she'd worn something that wasn't black).

They were the personal assistants and guards of Simon's alias and as long as they were with him they wouldn't be questioned, and as quickly as they planned to get in and out, there was little they had to actually be worried about.

But between Eliot's longer-than-standard hair and Parker's inability to lie, Sophie had plenty to worry about going off the rails. The margin for error here was larger than she normally liked. If they had had more time…

They disappeared into the facility and she comforted herself in the fact her part was over. If things went badly she and Nate would be able to get away well enough.

Nate went to the front, taking over the controls so that Hardison could run his hack once they got him into the system, and Sophie followed, sitting in the copilot chair.

She listened as Simon grifted their way into the facility with a mixture of the credentials they'd stolen and his ability to make everyone he spoke to feel inferior and intimidated (and even if that wasn't generally a path Sophie went, she had to admire his ability to make people do what he wanted through a few words laced with utter contempt).

She looked to Nate, tapping her ear and indicating he should put it into the mode where he could hear the others but they couldn't hear him. After he did so she asked, "When do we tell them?"

"Lets get through the job first, Sophie," he responded, setting down the shuttle and settling in to wait. The three inside were arriving at security now, their credentials and ids being checked and now was one of the times things were most likely to go wrong.

When they were let through, Hardison let out a whoop of victory and Sophie had to smile.

The three were moving again, the assistant leading them to the next, higher security checkpoint, babbling at Simon, obviously nervous. So far no one had taken a second note of Simon's companions.

Hopefully there would be a few minutes of quiet before the next gauntlet.

"What will you do after you tell them?" she asked Nate, still looking out the window. "Just walk away?"

"What do you want from me, Sophie?" Nate responded a little more sharply than she'd expected. "I'm not going to become their handler. They're not children. They'll figure things out."

She shook her head. Nathan Ford. Bleeding heart Nathan Ford and this strange twisted version of the man who'd chased her from Persephone to Osiris. She almost believed he was doing all of this, everything, as revenge for Sam.

Then she'd remember the look that had been on his face when the three agents had gone to the kitchen the first night. The hesitancy and excitement of suddenly being given the illusion of freedom had been written in their bodies, the hand that had been holding the transmitter clenched into a fist.

They had set a plan in motion together, but Nate was being Nate.

"They're caged birds, Nate," she said simply. "For better or worse, they need someone to watch them, at least until they learn how to fly alone."

Nate didn't reply and she let the silence last, listening as the three broke apart at the second security check point. Parker and Eliot headed back out, slipping their guide and laying their distractions before finding an exit, making their way away from the site to the drop point even as Simon was lead deeper into the facility, given a tour, and finally shown to River.

They waited in mute silence as the final step played out, as Simon activated the sonic wave knocking out the men in the room. His "River, it's Simon, it's your brother," was almost heartbreaking to hear.

Then Parker was activating the explosives and Hardison was talking them out of the facility and Nate was moving, barely even coming to a stop as they picked up Parker and Eliot before flying to the plan G exit, lowering the platform, countdown running out in their head before Simon confirmed they were on board.

They didn't even wait to pull the platform all the way up before the ship was moving, pulling up until the platform was above ground and taking off even as Eliot and Parker helped pull the Tam siblings into the safety of the craft.

Sophie went into the passenger area, pressing down the pain in her chest at the sight of the blank faced teenaged girl, hugging her brother back but not seeming to quite comprehend the world around her. Simon let her go and she stared at him for a moment longer.

Then she turned, eyes tracking to Parker, Hardison, and finally resting on Eliot. She moved to stand in front of him, eyes staring up into Eliot's, and Sophie had a feeling there was much more passing between them than the others in the shuttle could understand.

Eliot wasn't the only reader on the shuttle.

After a long moment Eliot nodded and smiled, a subtle gesture of his head back toward Simon and she turned.

For the first time they'd seen, a brilliant smile crossed River's face and she went to Simon again, embracing him on her own, closing her eyes and looking like she wasn't going to let go, maybe ever.

It was Simon's turn to look like he didn't know how to respond before slowly returning the embrace. He looked toward Eliot, confusion and gratitude on his face for a moment before he looked back to his sister.

The smile on his face was like a man seeing the sun for the first time in a long, long time.

The shuttle started to slow down. They would change shuttles before going to the docks. A ship to Persephone waited for Simon, cargo room for a large crate. They'd slip away, a single man with cargo, and escape the system before alarms could be raised.

Simon and River were the first out of the shuttle, Eliot following wasn't part of the plan but after earlier no one argued. The rest of them hurried to wipe down and clear the shuttle of any sign of their passing before following.

By the time they entered the second shuttle, Simon was standing next to a large box. He had acquired and altered it himself, testing and retesting it as best he could in the year he'd been trying to get in to rescue his sister and making plans for how to get them away safely. Even now River was falling into a stasis sleep that would last the next few weeks as Simon found them somewhere safe.

Hardison took the controls, flying them toward the docks, Nate with him and Parker sitting nearby, perched, watching the box with a blank expression.

Sophie herself sat to one side, gently storing the small briefcase Simon had given her before they set out. She watched through her peripheral vision as Eliot stood with Simon, his own eyes on the box, his expression unreadable even to a grifter.

"Why did she go to you?" Simon asked softly after a moment, words so quiet Sophie could barely hear them.

"She'd hallucinated you rescuing her before. She needed someone to tell her it was real," Eliot explained, his voice gentler than Sophie remembered hearing before. "She'll be mixed up for a while. Just keep letting her know she's safe. Keep calm, keep reassuring her. She'll heal, maybe not all the way, but she'll get better, and she needs you to believe that."

"Do you know what…?" Simon started, his voice failing, the crash of the after job looking like it was hitting him hard.

"No," Eliot answered the question and not for the first time. "The Intel we had isn't complete, all I have is theories." He paused before addressing the information Hardison had given them all before they'd even brought Simon in. "We do know that they managed to implant some conditioning. She has what we call a safe word, a phrase you can say to make her pass out if something should happen. Just say the words 'Eta kuram na smekh'."

Simon repeated the phrase until he had the pronunciation and the words themselves down.

"Don't use it unless you have no option," Eliot cautioned. "It's…" He licked his lips, flash of emotion running across his eyes before he buried it and continued. "Extremely disorienting and tends to have side effects. Activating conditioning could bring back things she was going through when they implanted it and the methods they use mean it's likely it ain't pleasant."

Silence fell again as they re-entered the city and it seemed like it was only a few heartbeats, not even enough time to catch their breaths, before they were at the docks and Simon was disembarking, the crew from his next transport coming to help load the crate onto the ship. Without a single backwards glance, Simon followed it into the hold.

He didn't say thank you, he didn't need to. A small fortune liquidated and the result of hours spent in his lab, perfecting a project that could get him arrested now sitting in a small metal briefcase said thanks in more ways than words could.

Sophie reached over, brushing her fingers against the handle, watching her private plans unfold and a new life spin together and out in front of her, even as Hardison turned the shuttle back toward the city.

They had a party to go to.

**oOo**

Sophie's part in the con was over and now she found herself more than happy to sit back (or lean forward against the railing of one of the balconies the reception for Barrington Air's shareholders was being held on) and watch the drama unfold.

She'd gone ahead with Nate, supposedly to get a lay of the party and find a good spot to supervise, but mostly just so they could see everything well.

If they'd both snagged champagne flutes on their way, then it was just their efforts to blend in.

First Parker drifted into the party, followed by Hardison and moments later Eliot, coming together. They stood out in their black work clothes and lack of finery and it was just moments before Dubenich had noticed their arrival.

He didn't panic, to his credit.

The cleaners appeared next, going to the three agents (who had taken interest in the buffet by then) and hearding them inside. Another appeared from the crowd and led Dubenich into the building as well.

Over the coms Sophie could hear one of the cleaners chiding Parker, Eliot, and Hardison in an almost disturbingly calm voice about the stir they'd caused and what a mess, but how they were right to report such grievous abuses of trust and would be forgiven.

Once inside the room Dubenich started to bitch about the agents messing up, not delivering the documents, and going AWOL for days.

Only to be interrupted by one of the Cleaners . "You know exactly where they've been," he stated, still unnaturally calm. "After stealing the files on the students in Project Academy they followed your directions to break into the office of a top military general, to steal his credentials in order to better forge IDs that would allow them to break into that facility and break out one of the most viable subjects of that project. You also offered to provide them with the formula for H2X14, which they dutifully refused, proving their loyalties to Father and alliance are stronger than had been thought."

"He's a browncoat!" Parker interjected, her intonation was wrong but it was Parker. Hardison and Eliot had both assured them that the Cleaners would know about the agents they were cleaning up after and wouldn't react to Parker behaving oddly. "A secret one! He's trying to take us all away from Father."

"Hush now," the other cleaner said, almost sounding gentle but patronizing, like they were talking to a slow child who had misbehaved without meaning to. "We know and we'll see that he is put someplace where he can't disrupt our order anymore."

Dubenich started to argue, insisting he was being set up, that he'd employed them to steal designs back from a competitor, trying to help keep his cover from collapsing, and Pierson had started the corporate espionage.

"Then why didn't they have handlers?" The Cleaner asked. "You requested their aid without handlers, an odd request, but you were trusted. Now we see you were hoping to take them away from us, all the easier with no handlers to watch and report your activities."

Sophie grinned at Nate. It was kind of poetic. If it weren't for the fact Dubenich had asked for agents without handlers in order to better cover up his true intentions then he would have a much better position to argue from.

Not to mention the system he'd played for power was now going to steamroll over any hopes of justice in the sake of making him their scapegoat.

A minor tussle later and the cleaners were leading Dubenich away through a crowd of very distressed shareholders.

The moment of victory became bittersweet when she heard one of the cleaners tell Parker, Eliot, and Hardison that they should be on a transport back to Olympus by sundown.

But she had champagne in one hand, a small metal briefcase in the other, Nate by her side, and the pull of that something she was looking for leading her away from the railing and out of the building to a final, or not, meeting of the crew.

**oOo**

Sophie had spent her entire life looking for something, she didn't know what. She had almost given up on ever finding it and suddenly here she was, standing in a park on a bright day, staring at the paper in her hand.

Hardison had taken the initiative to take advantage of the crash about to hit the stocks of Barrington Air and now he was handing her and Nate small fortunes.

"Think of it as a thank you," Hardison muttered at the surprised reactions he'd received. "We don't have much use for cash, but figured you two should get somethin' for the venture."

Nate looked to Sophie, a smile she had been missing touching his face. "Now is when we tell them."

Sophie slipped the paper into her pocket, still trying to process the zeros she'd seen, and held out the briefcase.

"There was a reason we knew the name of the formula that would destroy your nanobots," Sophie said. The three agents hadn't even known H2X14 existed, it was a guarded secret barely known by the scientists. It was half the reason their story had held such credulity. "I have a friend who was once an agent," she stated with a smile, seeing a look of understanding begin to cross Eliot's face. "Who happens to work closely with one of the most gifted scientists to mostly elude the Alliance's hold and an incredibly competent Doctor. Upon discovering my friend's predicament, those two spent three years trying to find her a way out, eventually perfecting their own version of the H2X14 formula."

Parker, Hardison, and Eliot had gone perfectly still now, something painfully close to hope in their eyes.

Nate continued the story. "After we brought Simon into the fold Sophie contacted her friend and got the formula for their version of the toxin, H2X14. There's an additional antidote required, since they haven't quite figured out the way the toxin acts on the human body, though we've been assured with the antidote and a little time the result is the same."

"We took the liberty of asking Simon to create three batches for us," Sophie finished, holding the briefcase out to them. "For you." She gave a small smile. "Think of it as our thank you."

Slowly, with the same hesitancy she'd seen when he had picked up the transmitter, like he was afraid he was in a dream and moving too fast would disturb it and rip it away, Eliot stepped forward and took the briefcase.

"The toxin mimics what happens to the nanobots when you die," Nate explained, that odd almost ironic grin crossing his face when he said. "Seems like now would be a good time to fake your own deaths."

Hardison and Parker stepped forward as Eliot opened the box, simply looking inside it for a moment before one by one removing a smaller package with the needles, instructions, and toxin in their separate dosages resting inside.

Their new lives resting in their hands.

"The toxin keeps for four months, though," Nate said. "Maybe wait until the heat's died down before making your escape?"

An odd sort of awkward silence fell, none of them having a clue what to say, what to do.

"Well… pleasure working with you," Nate managed.

"Yeah," Eliot answered, slowly closing the case. "No more encores."

"I already forgot your names." Parker chimed in.

Another beat then slowly Nate nodded, turned, and started to walk away.

One by one they turned as well, each choosing a different direction, towards a different life.

Sophie wasn't an idiot, though. She took a short cut down a side path and sat on a park bench waiting, a smile crossing her face as she saw Nate walking down the path toward her, Parker, Eliot, and Hardison trailing behind him, obviously trying to convince him of something.

He stopped when he saw her and she moved to stand in front of him. "You pick the jobs."

"My job was helping people. I find bad guys."

"Then find some bad guys," she answered. "There isn't a lack of them in this verse and they have money." She leaned closer. "Black king, white knight," she stated, giving him her smile. The Alliance's former white knight, the black king she knew would lead his new knights into battle, somehow finding a balance in a world of gray.

He met her eyes and finally nodded.

She'd spent her life looking for something. She still didn't know what it was.

But in that moment, for the first time in years, she felt that maybe, someday, she would.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been two weeks and three days since Hardison sent the wave out, calling the last scattered members of the team together, to start their new life.

Sam and Dean had gone to work almost immediately, picking up where Hardison's high tech skills gave way to more basic mechanics, going over every inch of the ship inside and out. Despite being an alliance trained pilot, Sam seemed just as comfortable working next to his brother, a fugitive wanted in at least four systems, their banter and insults echoing through the ship had become a familiar sound.

Hardison almost imagined one day it would be something he'd associate with home.

Sophie had arrived on the fifth day after the wave, using her status to acquire a quick transport from the relatively close Virginia system.

She'd quickly settled in, claiming the stateroom in the passenger dormitories, reasoning that with their cover stories, her taking any other room would bring all their aliases into question and Hardison didn't argue. And just as quickly she'd started helping out with building their aliases and outfitting the ship.

Making a decommissioned Nightwing-Class Stealth transport ship into The Good Ship Leverage (in addition to trying to convince Nate that was a stupid name for a ship) and home.

Parker had arrived midway through the second week. She'd come from Olympus and brought grand tales of her exploits getting off world and a bag full of jewelry, cash, and random items she'd acquired on her way. The sheer joy and excitement of being able to choose when and what to steal for herself lighting up her face even after indulging in it for the entire journey there.

She'd spent the time since working to establish a fresh alias and meet new fences. She knew some on most worlds but she'd have to be careful to avoid word getting to the wrong person that she was still alive.

And, in fairness, she'd spent a lot of time playing (there really wasn't any better word for it) on the three levels of catwalks that connected the bridge to the top floor and main hold of the ship.

But as the second week ended a sort of tension entered the ship as the preparations were finished off and they moved closer to being ready to go into the black, before finally there was only one thing keeping Leverage grounded.

The reason Hardison or Parker (or even Nate or Sophie) could now be found loitering on the bridge, periodically scanning the horizon that looked toward the nearest town.

Eliot hadn't shown up yet.

It had only been two weeks and three days but they couldn't wait forever. The longer they were grounded the greater the danger that they'd never even get in the air.

And they knew with every passing day chances were a little higher that Eliot wasn't coming at all.

So Hardison sat in the co-pilot seat, staring out over the badlands they were keeping carefully clear enough to take off, waiting.

**Alec Hardison: Communications and Technical Support**

At first he almost didn't notice it, lost in his own thoughts, considering the merits of reprograming their stealth system one more time, or maybe using his free time for some other defense. It just looked like a distant cloud of dust on a windy and dusty plain.

But as it got closer, Hardison could tell that the cloud was made by a vehicle and then finally the com system crackled into life with Eliot's gruff voice telling him to open up and make room for one more.

Later Hardison wouldn't remember his witty comeback before hitting the button for the PA system and announcing that Eliot was making his approach.

With energy built over nearly three months waiting for what he could feel coming in his bones, Hardison all but jumped down the stairs from the bridge, racing across the catwalk, not even noticing the three story drop to the floor of the hold below him.

It was a sign he was getting used to Parker that after climbing down the ladder to the second level of scaffolding, turning around and finding himself face to face with the girl suspended in a rig attached to the ceiling, his reaction was to just help her unhook herself.

**Parker: Acquisitions **

He continued down the staircase, ignoring Parker's antics as she flipped herself around on the steel bars to land next to him, and went to the forward air lock, hitting the keys to open it.

Above them he could hear Nate and Sophie coming out onto the catwalk from the top floor. They'd probably been in the conference room together. He could hear them arguing already.

**Nathan Ford: Captain of the Good Ship Leverage  
****Charolette Prentice 18****th**** Duchess of Hanover: Passenger on rou-****  
Sophie Devereaux: Grifter**

With the air lock open they could see Eliot approaching fast, riding some kind of hovering all-terrain vehicle that looked a little like an updated version of those old Earth-that-Was motorcycles.

"He should be wearing a helmet," Parker commented from beside him. "That's dangerous without one."

Hardison wasn't going to even mention her tendency to use the cat walks as her personal gymnastics training ground without so much as padding on the hard steel floor.

"So we'll finally get to meet this Spencer guy?" Dean's voice came from behind them, a second set of footsteps meaning Sam was with him as usual as they came out of the storage space that made up most of the ship's lowest deck.

**Sam and Dean Winchester: Pilot and Mechanic**

With a scattering of sand that was a little more dramatic than was probably completely necessary, Eliot and his bike came to a stop outside the open airlock doors just as Nate and Sophie made it to the ground floor.

With a grin as a greeting, Eliot walked the bike inside, leaning it against the wall and turning to them.

**Eliot Spencer: First Mate and Head of Security**

His hair was longer, like the guy hadn't cut it since they'd last seen him, and he looked worn out, but there was a sort of fire in his eyes and he held himself differently. If it weren't for the fact Hardison had spent months trying to identify it first in himself and then in Parker he might not have had a way to define it but somewhere along the line Hardison had given it a name.

They didn't carry themselves like they were bracing for the next beating anymore.

Almost unconsciously Hardison stood a little straighter.

"Sorry ta keep ya waitin'," Eliot offered, something in his tone making it entirely unapologetic. "But if we're all here why don't we get this show on the road?"

Nate nodded. "Sam, take us up. Everyone else, let's meet in the conference room. We've got a lot to discuss."

They all turned, Sam's ridiculously long legs carrying him up the stairs ahead of the rest, the grin on his face making Hardison wonder if flying was to Sam what theft was to Parker. Nate and Sophie were next, Dean falling into step beside Eliot as Hardison had mostly predicted would happen. From the two weeks he'd shared the ship with the guy, Dean seemed to have a freakish amount of similarities with Eliot.

Hardison started up the stairs when he saw Parker hitting the sequence to close the doors.

He almost missed the two soft words she muttered as steel shut them safely into their new home.

"All aboard."

_When the lights of Olympus fade into the black  
And those battles lost get left behind  
When my team is free and we've stolen the sky  
Well that's a damn good job to my way of mind_

_There's an empty room that she never can leave  
There's a frozen hell where we were trained for war  
There are men that played with a child's mind  
__A boy's innocence lost on Serenity's Floor_

_But we found our Leverage and something more_  
_Broke the only oath we ever swore_

_So take my love, take my land  
Take me where I cannot stand  
I don't care, I'll break free  
You can't steal the sky from me  
I'll escape into the black  
Not gonna let them take me back  
Burn the land and boil the sea  
You can't steal the sky from me_

_Our father raised us alone on the road  
Looking for vengeance to ease his broken heart  
And there's many a man saved by our hands  
From those monsters out in the borderland dark_

_We lost out father to the government's hounds  
But we're holdin' on and carrying through  
I still got my brother and he's got my back  
It's a fool don't keep your family with you_

_Don't try to tell me that this isn't true  
Don't follow where I'm headin' to_

_So take my love, take my land  
Take me where I cannot stand  
I don't care, I'll break free  
You can't steal the sky from me  
I'll escape into the black  
Not gonna let them take me back  
Burn the land and Boil the sea  
You can't steal the sky from me_

_When you've walked my road and seen what I've seen  
Well you won't go talkin' 'bout righteous men  
You'll know damn well why I want to keep to my sky  
Don't cry neath no-one's heel again_

_I've seen profits put before innocent souls_  
_I've seen sane men mad and children die_  
_I've been drunk and sober, married and fired_  
_I've been tortured, cheated, lost truth to lies_

_Won't see no tears when we say goodbye  
Back to the black and our stolen sky_

_So take my love, take my land  
Take me where I cannot stand  
I don't care, I'll break free  
You can't steal the sky from me  
You can't steal the sky from me_


End file.
